Subject: Re: BRK: Why Not XOM?
The previous Social Democrat-Greens coalition, in their ideological zeal, dismantled several reactors between 2019 and 2020. These clowns should be tried.

It still blows my mind that they closed down clean nuclear plants while leaving dirty coal plants operating. How is that "green" in any way? It's not, apparently it was just power play politics in a parliamentary system that requires coalitions to operate.



I agree that shutting German nuclear power plants that were operating perfectly well is among the nuttiest things a government has done in a long time. This article: https://www.tandfonline.com/do... claims that, if Germany had invested in nuclear power instead of phasing it out, it could have reduced its C02 footprint by 73% AND saved $730b US. Instead, it has spent all this money and INCREASED its CO2 footprint. Thank you, Greens, who, yes, deserve much of the blame. But its is not right to blame all of the on the Greens and the Social Democrats - after all, Canada and the USA, like Germany, have had right of centre as well as left of centre governments, and we have also turned their backs on nuclear energy for the past 20-30 years. So it would be a mistake to think that it's all the fault of electoral systems that give fringe parties too much control.

First of all, nuclear power has been unpopular in Germany for a long time. The last nuclear power plant opened in Germany was commissioned in 1989, and at its peak, about 25% of German power came from nuclear, in addition to large exports to neighbouring countries. Nuclear power has been in phase-out for at least 25 years, with fierce opposition from left of centre governments and only lukewarm support, if that, from right of centre governments. With Fukushima, in 2011, Germany really slammed on the breaks, and it was Angela Merkel, from the right of centre CDU (and a chemist, who should have known better) who shut down half the remaining plants, and scheduled all the others for phase-out, at the same time that Japan also decided to give up on nuclear energy. Schröder (2017) and Scholz (2021), Social Democrat chancellors, just completed the process in Germany, with the last reactor closed last year.

The beliefs that nuclear power is dangerous and polluting, and that we have no way of disposing of nuclear waste, are very widespread. The idea that we could just phase it out, and replace it with windmills and solar panels, is one of the most naive and destructive ideas of our century in technology, right up there with socialism and communism in the political sphere and gender-transitioning children and victim ideologies in the societal sphere. The sooner we come to our senses and throw out these bad ideas, the better, but we should acknowledge that they have not been just fringe beliefs, but widespread amongst the intelligentsia and decision makers throughout the world's liberal democracies.