From KlimaNachrichten Redakteur

Possibly the most ruthless reckoning on the nuclear phase-out has been delivered by historian Anna Veronika Wendland to the Salonkolumnisten. 

“The last knocker was again Habeck, who let the astonished German audience from Kiev know that the Ukrainians would of course use nuclear energy, because there was nothing wrong with that, as long as the plants were operated safely, “and these things are built”. This is what the man says in the face of the scrapping of currently three, a total of two dozen German plants, which were or are also “built” and have always been operated safely; otherwise, they would not have received their start-up permits from the nuclear regulator after each annual inspection. Unlike Ukraine, we have never experienced a reactor accident in our own country, and no one has ever been harmed by the nuclear waste that is peacefully stored in blue Castor containers in bunkered halls next to our nuclear power plants.  

With this statement, Habeck also spat one last time in the face of the German nuclear engineers, who can look back on an excellent international record and who, together with their power generation world champion plants, are being chased off the farm like dogs. Needless to say, none of the champagne drinkers cheering on the so-called “shutdown-proof” on April 15 will bother to mention the balance of these plants, which consists not only of nuclear waste, but of hundreds of billions of kilowatt hours of clean and cheap electricity, tens of thousands of people saved from the death of air pollution, tens of billions of tons of CO2 avoided.” 

Why has there been so much talk about nuclear energy in the social media lately? Quite simply, a majority of Germans are now against the phase-out, as reported by ARD-Deutschlandtrend. 60% rejection of the phase-out is a clear language. Of course, politicians from the CDU/CSU and the FDP also know this. And that is why they are now weeping over the end of nuclear energy, even though they disagreed in previous votes. The Ruhr barons (Ruhrbarone)  comment in particular on the FDP’s stance on energy policy.

“This is not the first time that the FDP is trying to give the impression that it is against the policies of the federal government, to which it itself belongs: when Christian Lindner (FDP) appeared in front of the cameras after the never-ending coalition talks, he gave the impression that anyone whose gas heating system breaks down in the coming year can replace it with a model, that does not have to be operated with hydrogen, but only in the technically capable of being operated with hydrogen.  

This is not the case, Business Insider clarifies: “The amendment to the Building Energy Act planned by the traffic light does not stipulate that owners of gas or oil heating systems must replace them immediately. It’s just that from January 2024, 65 percent of newly installed heating systems will have to be powered by renewable energies.” Whether Lindner deliberately lied or was simply too stupid to understand what he was negotiating, only he alone will know. If the latter is the case, probably not even that.” 

The public service media also play a peculiar role in this matter.
Now the ARD magazine Plus-Minus has apparently recognized that it can have an impact if Germany no longer has enough energy to produce or if energy becomes very expensive. The Wälzholz company is cited as an example. There, thoughts about energy play a very important role for the company. Outcome uncertain. Fritz Vahrenholt outlined the role of energy and its importance for industry in his lecture on the occasion of the conference “Save the Industry” on 19.01.2023. This month, the Auweiha Award for the weirdest statement in terms of phasing out nuclear energy goes to Katrin Göring-Eckart, a member of the Green Party. Die Welt:

Bundestag Vice-President Katrin Göring-Eckardt (Greens) expects electricity prices to fall in the future despite the nuclear phase-out. “The price of electricity will of course become cheaper the more renewables we have,” Göring-Eckardt told broadcaster MDR Aktuell on Tuesday. “Wind and sun, we always get them for free. That’s where we need the plants and the grids, and that’s why that’s the crucial thing.” Nuclear power, on the other hand, is “expensive, both in manufacturing, in production, and afterwards.”

We pause for a moment: For 20 years, the share of renewable energies in electricity production in Germany has been increasing. Why hasn’t the price fallen during this time? Why does electricity from wind and sun cost money at all?