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Why did you quote something that basically repeats the argument of the person you replied to?

> Imports have risen despite sufficient plant capacity in Germany to cover domestic demand entirely. In March 2024, the country announced the shutdown of seven more coal-fired power plant units after the winter, as they are no longer needed to guarantee supply security.




> Why did you quote something that basically repeats the argument of the person you replied to?

Because it answers his question and it is relevant in the context of Germany shutting down its nuclear power plants since this created a gap which needed to be filled with imports. Had those plants not been shut down there would not be a need to import power at the scale Germany currently does, especially not given the fact that power from existing nuclear power plants running on an existing load of nuclear fuel is far cheaper than imported power. With nuclear power the large majority of costs are concentrated in the construction phase - including all the costs incurred due to regulations - as well as the decommissioning stage. Fuel costs - including those of treating and storing nuclear waste - are but a fraction of the total costs. This means that once you have a working nuclear power plant you want to run the thing at full capacity as long as possible to recoup those initial costs and to earn income to finance the decommissioning of the plant at the end of its life. The plants which were shut down were not at the end of their useful lifetimes and could have produced many TWh of energy still - e.g. Isar 2 produced around 11 billion kWh per year and supplied around 3.5 million households with electricity which it could have continued to do for many years still.




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