We have invested decades ago in new nuclear (pebble bed reactor, breeder, reprocessing, ...) and it was a costly failure. Why should we keep making mistakes?
Look at France, they have zillions Euros to invest to get ONE EPR reactor online. They are losing huge amounts of money on another one they are building in Finland. Germany lost a lot of money on the EPR, too. The EPR France builds in the UK will be the most expensive power plant on the planet with >20bn pounds costs.
> How much further down do you expect fossil to go in ten years?
The projections for 2030 are around 65% electricity from renewable energy.
So still 35% coming from fossil if the remaining nuclear plants are shut down. Again, Germany goals and effort are laudable, but you miss my point, it is not about nuclear vs renewable, but nuclear vs fossils as a complement to renewable.
Why didn't Germany close its coal plants first? This would have saved several Metric Tons of CO2 and saved the life of a few thousands people (due to air pollution).
When is Germany going to reach no CO2 emissions? (Expanding nuclear along renewable would have meant it could have reached this goal right now). You talk about the costs of EPR (which exploded I agree), but this is nothing compared to the cost of climate change, which Germany contribute three times more than France. This cost is shared across the world, but this is hypocritical to not take it into account.
> but you miss my point, it is not about nuclear vs renewable, but nuclear vs fossils as a complement to renewable.
I don't miss your point, I just don't think nuclear is a viable complement to renewable in Germany.
> Why didn't Germany close its coal plants first?
Because it wanted to get rid of nuclear first and as fast as possible. The reasons for that is all known and a little research can explain it to you - beyond the believe that it was 'irrational'. It's not that you need to agree with it, but people here had other priorities than you have.
Still CO2 emissions were reduced by 27% from 1990 to 2016.
The next two decades will bring the end of coal-based electricity.
> When is Germany going to reach no CO2 emissions?
When do you stop going to vacations via airplanes? Stop eating meat? Stop driving a car?
> Expanding nuclear along renewable would have meant it could have reached this goal right now
No, nuclear and renewable are not compatible. Nuclear is centralized monopolistic, mostly state-owned form of energy. I sucks up huge amounts of investments and corrupts everything around it.
> This cost is shared across the world
Germany invested into renewable energy and jump-started the PV business. That's equally important.
> Because it wanted to get rid of nuclear first and as fast as possible.
And this killed a few thousand persons and rejected MegaTons of CO2 in the atmosphere that could have been avoided.
> The next two decades will bring the end of coal-based electricity.
This is 30 years later than could have been, and gas instead of coal is not the solution either. Will Germany have 100% renewable in 20 years?
> When do you stop going to vacations via airplanes? Stop eating meat? Stop driving a car?
I changed my way of living already. I could still do more yes, but the most efficient way would be to convince policy makers to close coals/gas before nuclear.
> No, nuclear and renewable are not compatible. Nuclear is centralized monopolistic, mostly state-owned form of energy.
I sucks up huge amounts of investments and corrupts everything around it.
Again, the drawbacks of nuclear power are nothing compared to the drawback of climate change, and gas corrupts too.
Probably yes. They seem to be poised to get there quicker than anybody else.
The inhibition to us achieving this goal earlier wasn't a lack of faith in nuclear power - it was a lack of belief in the importance of dealing with climate change at all.
Moreover (and this is the critical part), it's not like nuclear power is going to get us to 100% renewables any quicker than solar/wind will at this point - not since they broke the cost barrier in 2014.
In the 1980s nuclear was the only way to go zero carbon. 10 years it would have helped us get there quicker. Since 2014, there's no real point to building out nuclear capacity any more - new nuclear can't compete on cost only rickety old plants can.
> Again, the drawbacks of nuclear power are nothing compared to the drawback of climate change
One Fukushima or Chernobyl scale event in a densely populated country like Germany on a densely populated continent like Europe? Having reactors with molten cores near my home town with a 5 mill people metro area?
Japan had massive luck that the wind wasn't blowing in the direction of Tokyo.
Fukushima: how many deaths? Even if the wind was blowing in the direction of Tokyo?
But sure, let's close the nuclear reactor who killed nobody in Germany, and keep open the coal plants which still accounted for 228TWh in 2018, meaning they killed around 22800 persons per year. And let's only close them in 2038, 30 years later, having wasted 350 Million Tons of CO2 by year and killed hundreds of thousands of people in total.
Look at France, they have zillions Euros to invest to get ONE EPR reactor online. They are losing huge amounts of money on another one they are building in Finland. Germany lost a lot of money on the EPR, too. The EPR France builds in the UK will be the most expensive power plant on the planet with >20bn pounds costs.
> How much further down do you expect fossil to go in ten years?
The projections for 2030 are around 65% electricity from renewable energy.