Germany set to miss net zero by 2045 target as climate efforts falter

That's basically what Germany did. They recently shut down their nuclear plants and restarted their coal plants.

The government has more interest in pursuing the global power ambitions of the Standort Deutschland rather than accomplishing environmental goals, even in spite of one of the parties being named Die Grünen (which is basically just good PR for them and nothing of substance) - and the goals that are being pursued anyway are all to the slogan of Cem Özdemir "Zwischen Wirtschaft und Umwelt gehört kein oder". Environmentalism as long as it remains profitable, even at costs of +2, +2,5, +3 or more °C

The next elections are sure to be won by Merz, with or without the AfD, and very likely to have the FDP in influential ministries, so nothing will change - or perhaps even for the worse.

That's what happens when the main goal of production is not the goal of creating socially necessary goods, but to insert money into the labor process and end up with more than you had at the beginning.

Energy or electricity? Those are two very different things.

Some of the things you listed are indeed good, but we're not going to avert climate catastrophe unless we reject the idea that we can only do good things if they're less expensive than the bad thing alternative.

There's also a lot of propaganda paid by fossil fuel lobbyists (and some nuclear lobbyists still going for the perceived easy target of renewables, as rediculous as it is...) with the goal to disrupt the energy transition.

And the majority here actually believes they are anti-fossil fuels while they actually parrot their propaganda (for example the "Germany stopped nuclear power to burn more coal"-fairy tale you can read a hundred times by now here - only invented for the talking point of coal being needed, when Germany is actually at a historic low in use) and thus constantly running (objectively wrong) talking points against renewable power.

On one hand I love the obvious panic of fossil fuel lobbyists getting more desperate and rediculous in their massaging by the day. On the other hand, they already brain-washed a massive amount of people that I fear are really lost and will fight tooth and nails against a reasonable green transition to pursue their fantasies of "sane" nuclear build-up (that isn't sane because nobody is actually building enough capoacities to make sense mathematically), without that "non-working" storage (that nuclear power actually needs to be economically viable) and "expensive" renewables (same, same...).

We'll drop a giant ice cube into the ocean, solving the problem once and for all!

Portugal

You've been eating at the wrong places... that's a spanish thing: too much olive oil on every dish and too much fat on every cured meat

That's all well and good in the energy sector. What about transportation? If I understand correctly, transportation makes up the majority of the emissions Germany aims to cut

You forgot to add that we were once leader in solar tech, but that industry got destroyed willingly by the then ruling CDU and Peter Altmeyer.

So why not modernize or replace the nuclear plants? Battery storage isn't anywhere close to being able to store baseline energy for a full renewable grid.

I agree it's a perception issue, but that doesn't mean nothing can be done about it.

Who cares about renewables v nuclear? Either one will get us there.

If I understand correctly Germany does not have a plan to address transportation emissions.

It's more efficient to use the money required for

1. The inspection
2. The renovations
3. Acquiring new fuel

And spend it on renewables than to do the above.

Also a big factor noone seems to care about: staff. The people who worked there have other jobs now. You can't just plop a reactor plant somewhere and expect it to make electricity you need highly specialised staff for that. We also did not invest into training new staff because why would we, with the stop for nuclear power being decided 10 years ago.

Natural gas is a byproduct of gasoline refining, so I'd rather see it converted to hydrogen than have it get burned, whether for use or disposal.

Who have been subjected to targeted information warfare/propaganda for years.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/11/08/climate/cop27-emissions-country-compare.html

https://archive.is/pUfa6

New York times reported China is ahead of pledges

Nothing in general. Well the build times are rediculous in Europe and planning right not to build nuclear soon is too late already for any agreed upon climate goal. But that's another matter...

The problem is the brain-washed nuclear cult on social media briganding everything. In the last year on Reddit you couldn't even post any report about any new opening of wind or solar power without it degenerating into always the same story: "bUt ReNeWaBlEs DoN't WoRk! StOrAgE DoEs'Nt ExIsT! tHeY aRe A sCaM tO bUrN mOrE FoSsIl FuElS! gErMaNy KiLlEd ThEir NuClEaR To BuRn MoRe CoAl BeCaUsE ThEy ArE InSanE!!"

Mentioning the fact that Germany in reality shut down reactors not even contributing 5% of their electricity production that were scheduled for shutdown for 30 years and in a state you would expect with that plan and already more than replaced by renewables got you donwvoted into oblivion every single time.

Poor track record with safety (not talking about the big issues such as meltdowns, but smaller issues such as minor leaks, and workplace incidents). Nobody's interested in building them unless they've got profit guarantees and subsidies from the government. Nobody's interested in insuring them in full (unless it's the government). Nobody's interested in the eventual decommissioning process, which can take a century, and again, still costs. Renewables will be up and running, and profitable, long before nuclear is constructed.

It scares people into making them plan and pay for everything up front. If you did the same with literally any other fuel source it wouldn't even get built. Coal would be DoA if they had the same limits on radioactive emissions as a nuclear plant.

Electricity could be used for heating (via heat pumps) if Germany had an abundance of clean electricity in the winter.

Germany doesn't get all of its electrical power by renewable meness by a long shot. Nuclear plants were prematurely shut down before their end of life while at the same time germanies reliance on fossil fuels went up. This is what everyone is talking about.

It's more interesting to ask where the fuel could come from, given a few years of planning. The energy density is so much higher than gas, that geographical locality doesn't really matter.

Sure as fuck better than setting targets you know you're not going to hit and then acting all shocked when you don't

Unfortunately we'll already be doomed long before that happens

The usual fantasizing about nuclear and failing any actual plan, very popular right now. Because nuclear lobbyists pay well.

Or more precise: They want to build more nuclear power. But of course all their planned and their existing nuclear combined will not even be remotely enough to cover just the minimal required base load in a few decades. Because changing most of our primary energy demand (industry, heating, transport in varying shares) to electricity (that is often only making up 20%+ in a lot of countries) will massively increase the demand.

If you are not building (or planning to start the build-up very, very soon) enough nuclear capacity to cover 80% or more of today's electricity demand then you will not have the minimal base load required in 2-3 decades, because there will be an increase by at least a factor of 2,5 in demand.

But that's not something you tell people as nobody has a clue how to pay for building even more nuclear (where "even more" means the actual needed amount)...

(A few exceptions with massive hydro potential aside -as they have access to that cheaper base load- there is exactly one country with a plan that works mathematically: France. And even their government is lying to their people when they talk about 6 new reactors with another 8 optional. Because the full set of 14 is the required minimum they will need in 2050 and onward (their old ones are not in a state to run mcuh longer than that).

But hey. Even the most pro-nuclear country and the one with a domestic indutry actually doing a lot of the nuclear build up for other countries can't tell their population the trutz about costs and minimla requirements. If you want to know just onme thing about the state of nuclear, that this should be it.

https://www.thelocal.se/20230809/swedish-government-unveils-plan-to-scrap-cap-on-new-nuclear-plants

And of course, the materials that go into solar panels and other renewable tech (lithium ion batteries) also appear out of thin air and isn't extracted in environmentally degrading ways...

That's true but couldn't that also be said for the rare earth metals used in batteries to power phones and EVs?

No energy production is perfect. Just good to look at the pros and cons.

I don't understand the hostility. Germany made a conscious decision to turn off their nuclear power plants.

Facts are facts. Nuclear power is the 2nd safest power generation method per terawatt hour. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh

Additionally there are ways to recycle nuclear fuel. Most often the arguments against nuclear are fueled by emotion and not fact based.