this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
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While in hindsight not all the decisions of the German energy policies seem right and it would have been better to keep the nuclear power plants operating for a few years, there was never the plan to replace nuclear with coal. All of the nuclear power generation has been replaced by wind and solar power generation. In fact, the plan was to phase out nuclear and replace the remaining coal generation with natural gas power plants. This definitely got more difficult in the time of LNG. The plan in any case is to phase out coal as well and with 56% renewable generation in 2023 Germany is on track to do so.
If only 56% is renewable, what exactly was nuclear replaced with, if not fossil fuels?
I hope this is a serious question, obviously this depends on your baseline. In 2013 Germany had a 56% share of fossil fuels, 27% share of renewables and 17% share of nuclear power generation. In the current year, the shares are: 59% renewables, 39% fossil fuels and 2% nuclear power generation. So in the last ten years there has been a switch in generation from both nuclear and fossil fuels to renewable generation. Could it have been better in the wake of the looming crisis of both climate and energy? Yes, I think it would have been better to keep some newer nuclear power plants running. But Cpt. Hindsight always has it easier.
In the long run every successful economy will generate its major share of electricity from renewables. Some countries will choose to generate a part with nuclear, others will choose to use a mix of hydrogen, batteries etc. to complement renewables. We will see what works best.
Hydrogen isn't a fuel source. It's at best an energy storage technology, and you know you generate hydrogen? Electricity so if 56% of your electricity is renewables, then 44% is fossil fuels, and that is still WAY too much.
Yes, of course, hydrogen is not an energy source (neither are batteries). Sorry if I was not clear about that, I thought it was clear from the context. I was talking about hydrogen and batteries as means of balancing fluctuating output from renewables.
I tend to agree that 44% fossil fuels are still too much, the transition could have been faster and needs to faster in the future. Not a lot of countries have done the successful pivot from fossil energy to renewable energy. The only example that comes to mind is Denmark, where they have great policies (and great wind resources). So I guess everything needs to be viewed in context.
Why replace nuclear and not coal though, seems like a pretty stupid choice
While I agree that it would have been better to phase out coal before nuclear power plants, I also think that those decisions have to be viewed in context and are more nuanced than 'pretty stupid'.
For example, as other in this thread pointed out, nuclear power plants can be pretty safe to operate IF there is a good culture of safety and protocols in place. Which of course need to be followed and supervised by a strong regulatory body. Two of nuclear power plants in Brunsbüttel and Krümmel were missing this kind of safety culture in the opinion of the regulatory body. They were both operated by Vattenfall. If you lose trust in the operator of such critical infrastructure, then a decision to shut down nuclear power plants has to factor in all the arguments at hand.
That's a fair point