Has Germany just switched out its lights?

Last three nuclear power stations go offline, as Germany goes back to coal

Montage © Facts4EU.Org 2023

The country of “Atomkraft? Nein danke” turns Net Zero into ‘Not Close To Net Zero’

On Saturday Germany extinguished its last three remaining nuclear power stations, in a delayed move which started 12 years ago after a policy decision by Angela Merkel. Originally numbering 17, there are now ‘net zero’ nuclear power stations in Germany, but the German coal-fired power plants are being fired up to take up the strain.

At a time when Germany has been in the midst of an energy crisis principally caused by its governments’ decisions to rely on President Putin for its energy supplies, Germany has decoupled its last three remaining nuclear power stations from the electricity grid. Somewhat astonishingly it has been re-commissioning its mothballed coal-fired power stations instead.

What’s the point of expensive UK Net Zero policies when Germany increases its CO2?

In a country where the Greens have been powerful for years – and are now one of the three coalition partners in Olaf Scholz’s government – Facts4EU.Org questions the coherence of Germany’s energy decisions.

We also present the evidence of how Germany has been blowing smoke rings across the EU and across Europe as a whole – and how this is set to increase.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org Summary

Germany’s use of coal to power itself, compared with the UK, 2022

Germany : 31.0%
UK : 1.6%
Germany’s use of coal to generate electricity is over 19 times that of the UK

[Source : Our World in Data/Ember, Oxford University, accessed 17 Apr 2023.]

The chart above shows two things :-

The very small reduction in Germany’s use of coal to power itself
The recent increase in Germany’s use of coal to generate electricity

Germany was already one of the EU’s worst polluters – now it looks set to get worse

When it comes to the worst polluters in the EU, Germany is right up there. Now, thanks to the decisions of the German government, it will pollute the planet even more.

25 years ago Germany was generating almost 30% of its electricity from nuclear power. By 2013, thanks to Angela Merkel, this had almost halved to 15.4%. Now it’s ‘net zero’.

The problem for Germany – an intensive user of energy – is that it must keep its vast industries powered up, and renewables simply will not do that. This is why the German government is now firing up its mothballed coal-fired power stations (as Facts4EU reported months ago) in order to keep its industries going and to keep its people from freezing to death in the sometimes very cold German winters.

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German business is worried and the government is divided

On Saturday Peter Adrian, President of Germany's DIHK (Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce), told the Rheinische Post:-

"Despite lower gas prices, energy costs for most businesses in Germany remain high. At the same time, we're still not out of the woods yet as regards security of supply."

Germany's tripartite coalition is not in complete agreement over this policy, with the head of the Free Democratic Party's Christian Lindner "regretting the shutdown".

Yesterday in Bavaria in southern Germany Premier Markus Söder of the centre-right CSU even demanded his state should be allowed to take control of the Isar 2 nuclear power plant which lies around 50 miles north of Munich. This is one of the three which was permanently taken off the grid the previous night.

"Bavaria is, therefore, demanding that the federal government give states the responsibility for the continued operation of nuclear power. Until the [energy] crisis ends and while the transition to renewables has not succeeded, we must use every form of energy until the end of the decade. Bavaria is ready to face up to this responsibility.
"We are a pioneer in nuclear fusion research and are examining the construction of our own research reactor, in cooperation with other countries. It can't be that a country of engineers like Germany gives up any claim to shaping the future and international competitiveness."

Opposition to the nuclear shutdown has taken many forms. It was only in January that the people of the entire village of Lützerath were forcibly evicted and their properties razed to the ground, to make way for an open-cast coal mine. The coal there is lignite, considered to be the worst kind environmentally. Thousands demonstrated but to no avail.

German people have more in common with the British than you might think

Interestingly, the ordinary German people are expressing contrary views to their government, in the same way that has happened in the UK on many key issues. Here the results of the latest polling we found in a German newspaper at the weekend. The Forsa survey was conducted for one of Germany's most watched TV stations, RTL.

Only 28% of Germans favoured switching off remaining nuclear power stations
Two-thirds favour extending lifespan of nuclear reactors or connecting old plants back to the grid

[Source : Forsa Institute, Berlin, Frankfurt, Dortmund and Hamburg.]

Despite the views of the people, the coalition government of Olaf Scholz went ahead with the decommissioning anyway. Meanwhile nearly 20 coal-fired power stations have been put back into service in the last year. These are amongst the 151 which Facts4EU.Org has previously reported on, which are being considered for re-commissioning.

Observations

The lies and hypocrisy over ‘Net Zero’ in the EU recently have even surprised us – and we’re used to it.

We remind readers that Ursula von der Leyen’s Commission’s TOP priority is her ‘Green Deal’. Hundreds of billions have been thrown at this and there is barely an EU press statement on any subject which doesn’t try to tie some policy or other to green issues.

And yet here we have Germany, the largest economy in the EU (by far), with massive industries and the largest population of any EU country, switching off the last of its perfectly functioning nuclear power stations.

Are wind and solar power expected to take up the slack? No. Instead Germany is powering up its mothballed coal-fired power stations and even creating new open-cast coal mines. And yet the Greens are one of the three parties in power in Germany and they’re all for this? It almost beggars belief.

The big question for British readers is why on earth we should be expected to make enormous sacrifices, stop buying cars we love, stop being able to drive them in metropolitan areas, pay for very expensive ‘heat pumps’, continue to subsidise ‘green energy’ projects on a massive scale, while Germany’s CO2 emissions are going to continue to soar across the continent?

We must get reports like this out there

Reports like the one above take far longer to research, write and produce than many people realise. If they were easy, readers would see other organisations also producing these daily. However, there’s little point in the Facts4EU.Org team working long hours, seven days-a-week, if we lack the resources to promote them effectively – to the public, to MPs, and to the media. This is where you come in, dear reader.

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[ Sources: OWID (Oxford University) | Forsa Institute | Rheinische Post, SDZ, RTL, and other German media ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Mon 17 Apr 2023

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Reader Comments 21

11. LuxuryBalloon , Monday, April 17, 2023, 16:24:

And we beat the Germans in two world wars and a World Cup …

12. jon iivesey , Monday, April 17, 2023, 16:45:

10. Sparky , Thanks for another demonstration of your logical powers. A European company scraps a train service because of European bureaucracy and somehow it's the UK's fault.
Did it occur to you that anyone who still wants to go on jaunts to Europe will travel by some means or other, so although this will cut into that company's profits, it will be a wash for the UK economy as a whole?
No, of course it didn't occur to you. You were too busy having a Pavlovian response to the word Brexit, like every other little pooch.

13. jon iivesey , Monday, April 17, 2023, 17:01:

Oh, and I looked up the frequency of this world-changing Orient Express, and the answer is "running roughly once a week from March to November." Seriously? Once a week? Part of the year.

14. ste , Monday, April 17, 2023, 18:11:

on net zero - it DOESN'T stand up to scrutiny, that is why 'they' will not debate this political evil

15. jon iivesey , Monday, April 17, 2023, 18:22:

14. ste , OK, but we are the citizens, so we can make them debate Net Zero. I guess EU "citizens" are a bit stuck with that one. They just have to take what they are given by Brussels.

16. KB , Monday, April 17, 2023, 19:36:

Continuing progress on reducing CO2 emissions is a central plank of the Withdrawal Agreement and its Level Playing Field.
You can bet that if the UK was replacing nuclear power with coal power, the EU would be threatening us with retaliation.

17. Eureka , Monday, April 17, 2023, 22:05:

2. And yet, someone voted them in, repeatedly, for over a decade.
4. Food for plants, sure. Try telling that to the pigs on an Animal Farm. That's like telling Boxer he is going to the hospital.
Neither are inherently bad or dangerous, without context.
Just because you don't understand something does not make it stupid.
It's easier to understand the need for netzero if you know that climate change is real.
6. Out of curiousity, when you're in the south, are you still a Northern Muppet? Or are you a muppet regardless of the cardinal point?
7. Totally agree. Home insulation & double glazing should be a standard and yet it took people protesting & getting arrested just to bring this to basic info to attention - to no avail. Had we begun ages ago, it would have been too soon, given the current circumstances.
12.According to the powers of logic you just demonstrated, then Pavlov would think of feeding the dogs after hearing a bell.
13. So, yet another thing you've lost that you didn't really know much about.
14. Neither does Brexit, which is why it hastily went to a vote without ample time for scrutiny.
People in the UK were still googling, for days after the vote - "what is Brexit?".
To this day, Brexiteers are still figuring this out. This may be a feature & not neccessarily a fault.

18. Captain Thunderbolt , Monday, April 17, 2023, 22:12:

10. Sparky
Now tell us why he changed his plan.........it was because covid delayed his plans at building the manufacturing plant in Wales, Ineos Automotive bought the ex Mercedes-Benz production plant in Hambach France because it was ready to go to meet his timeline for production
COVID changed his plans NOT BREXIT
-
Press release from Ineos
Ineos said it’s “reviewing its manufacturing strategy for the new Grenadier in light of the Covid-19 pandemic – which has led to some delays in our development plans, but has also presented some new opportunities in terms of existing manufacturing capacity that were not previously available to us.
“Specifically, Ineos Automotive has entered detailed discussions with Mercedes-Benz on the acquisition of its Hambach site in Moselle, France. We have therefore suspended the post-lockdown resumption of work at our sites in Wales and Portugal pending the outcome of this review. Further updates will follow in the coming weeks.”
And the reason why it came on the market
“ Daimler decided to sell 50 percent of the Smart brand to Geely last year, establishing a new joint venture with the Chinese carmaker that will move production of future Smart models in China.”

19. Captain Thunderbolt , Monday, April 17, 2023, 22:28:

17. Eureka
14. Neither does Brexit, which is why it hastily went to a vote without ample time for scrutiny.
-
Really........ Cameron announced the date in February 2016 the official EU referendum campaign went from April until the vote in June 2016 Cameron made a speech about the referendum in January 2013, which was part of his manifesto for the 2015 GE, which he won a majority government.
So how much time do you need?

20. Gazzablack , Monday, April 17, 2023, 22:54:

10, sparky
The ROI's real GDP growth rate has been called into serious question as a result of a revelationary report from the Irish Times.
How much of that growth is real, and how much is statistically manipulated?
.
Irish goods exports that are not actually produced or traded from Ireland now account for more than a third of all Irish goods traded abroad, according to the business post, basing it's analysis on data released by the Central Statistics Office.
.
"Phantom exports", which are produced and traded in other countries under contract by Irish registered firms but recorded as Irish exports, accounted for 38% - or €134 billion - of all Irish goods exports last year, it said.
This compares to just €6 billion - or 5% of goods exports in 2012
.
If Irish incomes really are twice those in Brexit Britain, then it's about time someone told the Irish.
Households and NPISHs final consumption per capita (constant 2015 US$) is much lower in Ireland than in the UK
.

21 comments, page 2 of 3

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