The shutdowns of three plants take place as Europe faces one of its worst-ever energy crises and as support for nuclear as a low carbon energy is, once again, on the rise.
The shutdowns of three plants take place as Europe faces one of its worst-ever energy crises and as support for nuclear as a low carbon energy is, once again, on the rise.
Let me play devils advocate here.
It´s fucking dumb, but also understandable why it happened. The anti-nuclear movement is far older and more established than the anti-climate change movement in germany, sparked by radioactive fallout in most Germans living memory. Add to that, that nuclear power had always been a very political issue with butched end-storag solution that was all about cold war, and even the left had to be very anti-nuclear.
Turning that whole momentum around and re-embrace nuclear is strategically worse than pushing for full renewable, if you compare it to the full coal - little renewable and NO nuclear approach of the conservatives. Nuclear was poised to die in germany ecause it´s on the agenda of most relevant parties and the old poster child of the greens, so you take what you can get. Even if it sucks and it´s stupid, there is at least a bit of strategy behind this.
France is doing just fine with lovely clean nuclear energy, so I don't know why the left had to be anti-nuclear in Germany.
Should have clarified this better. There was a huge debate about where to store the evidently dangerous waste, and since it was still the cold war at that point, of course the government only considered storage facilities directly bordering the DDR. Horrible places to store waste like the Saltmine asse that they had to dig up again. (While there are actual potential granite mines in bavaria, which would never be considered because of that places disproportionate and conservative influence on politics). So of course the left opposed these repositories, and one mayor point was to oppose the creation of more waste while there was no viable repository.
And guess what, the left was absolutely right to oppose the repository sights that were simply chosen due to their proximity to socialist territories.
And since until today nothing really has changed in that field, with conservatives in bavaria blocking off the only viable storage facility in granite mines, our waste rots in "temporary" repositories and nobody likes that.
The think pro-nuclear people refuse to address. Nevada won't let America do Yucca Mountain. Germany won't store waste in Bavaria. Neoliberals don't seem to care about this. They only care that the end result - nuclear plant shutdown - can be pinned on Greens and Leftists.
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France is just about all in on nuclear. They couldn't quit if they tried.