Asklemmy

Yes. And as you see these articles are from 9 month before the nuclear plants were phased out. But since Germany didnt start the war in Ukraine i don't think it can be considered a failure of the German energy policies in general. And incidently, if it wasn't for the resurgence of nuclear in the 2009 government, the original plan to expand renewables that was formulated with the decision to phase out nuclear power by the 2002 government, would have made it much easier for Germany to react to the Ukraine war.

It is always painted as if the debate and political alignments would make it coal vs. nuclear. But the reality of German politics and economic interests in politics is that nuclear and coal are both on the same side and acting against renewables. It is the existing fossil lobbies and energy companies heavily invested in fossils that are against renewables. For them it doesnt matter, if they can run a nuclear plant or a coal plant longer, as either is an otherwise stranded asset form them. The argument, that we could reduce the amount of coal plants this way was only coming up, when the general debate started to acknowledge climate change as a serious danger and mitigation as necessary, so around 2015-2018. But it is not a sincere interest of the pro nuclear factions in German politics.