Unless you’re German, in which case this is exactly what happened.
It’s not what happened.
Nuclear power got replaced by renewable energy. Gas was mainly needed for heating (~50 % of households use gas, ~25 % use oil) and the industry (steel, glas…), much less for power. Germany even reduced their gas consumption heavily. The gas used for power is roughly the same amount as before shutting down npp.
Except fossil fuel production went UP when “renewable replaced nuclear”.
While renewable was built out quite a bit and nuclear was decreased at roughly the same time, total demand has risen (as it tends to do) and that delta was filled by more fossil fuel production.
IMO (and many other peoples) the climate-positive approach would have been to keep nuclear, while building out renewables and phasing out fossil. And then try to build more renewables to get rid of nuclear, if that’s still desired.
this is the German power production for the last 30 years. Shutting down nuclear started in early 2000s
brown = brown coal, pink = black coal, grey = nuclear, yellow = gas, blue = oil, green = renewables
What I can read in this graphic is black coal and nuclear got phased out. Brown coal sunk a little bit and renewables multiplied their production.
Yes, I support your opinion, it would’ve been better having 25-30% nuclear power instead of coal. I guess this wasn’t possible as nuclear always had a bad stance in Germany and coal was a big employer. Maybe a bit like Norway and its oil.
But at the point Germany is now or was a year ago it’s way easier, cheaper and faster to invest in renewables instead of building new npp.
It’s not what happened.
Nuclear power got replaced by renewable energy. Gas was mainly needed for heating (~50 % of households use gas, ~25 % use oil) and the industry (steel, glas…), much less for power. Germany even reduced their gas consumption heavily. The gas used for power is roughly the same amount as before shutting down npp.
Except fossil fuel production went UP when “renewable replaced nuclear”.
While renewable was built out quite a bit and nuclear was decreased at roughly the same time, total demand has risen (as it tends to do) and that delta was filled by more fossil fuel production.
IMO (and many other peoples) the climate-positive approach would have been to keep nuclear, while building out renewables and phasing out fossil. And then try to build more renewables to get rid of nuclear, if that’s still desired.
this is the German power production for the last 30 years. Shutting down nuclear started in early 2000s
brown = brown coal, pink = black coal, grey = nuclear, yellow = gas, blue = oil, green = renewables
What I can read in this graphic is black coal and nuclear got phased out. Brown coal sunk a little bit and renewables multiplied their production.
Yes, I support your opinion, it would’ve been better having 25-30% nuclear power instead of coal. I guess this wasn’t possible as nuclear always had a bad stance in Germany and coal was a big employer. Maybe a bit like Norway and its oil.
But at the point Germany is now or was a year ago it’s way easier, cheaper and faster to invest in renewables instead of building new npp.