Nuclear Ideas

3 min readApr 19, 2023

In an ironic twist, one of the environmentally forward countries seems to take a step back from nuclear in favor of coal. Within the past week, the German government recently shut down last-minute appeals to delay the shutdown of the last 3 nuclear power plants in Germany, which was set to take effect on April 15th. The initial decision to ban nuclear in Germany was pushed in 2011, after the disaster in Fukushima, Japan. Nuclear power itself was never intended to be a permanent solution, with it having downsides such as nuclear waste and the fact that uranium in some capacities is limited. However, substituting nuclear power for coal, which is antithetical to the ideals of the German Green Party which pushed the ban, is unacceptable, and directly harmful to the people of Germany and the environment.

In 2002, Germany established its “National Strategy for Sustainable Development”, which would serve as a set of guidelines for environmental policy within the country and would lead to the establishment of lofty goals of increasing renewable production by 63% by 2050 and phasing out electrical production from nuclear power plants by 2022. Germany’s renewable production has risen, and as of 2022, is responsible for 46.2% of the energy production within the country. However, the real issue arises with their production of coal. Their policies regarding renewables make the fact that they rolled back nuclear energy production detrimental to their goals.

Despite their goals of reducing coal consumption, their coal consumption rose from 31.9% of electricity produced (via non-renewable sources) in Q3 of 2021, to 36.3% in Q3 of 2022. Not only has coal consumption increased, but coal mining in Germany has also increased, with 107.4 million tons of coal being mined in 2020, and 126 million tons of coal being mined in 2021. The rate of coal mining in Germany has increased so much that it has threatened to wipe out entire villages, with the village of Kerpen-Manheim, the hometown of the world-renowned F1 driver Michael Schumacher, set to be demolished to expand the Hambach surface mine. The German government, specifically the Green Party seems to fear the repercussions to the people of Germany in the event of a nuclear reactor accident, however, has no issues, with the continued and expanded burning of coal, specifically lignite which is one of the most harmful forms of coal (and mined heavily at the Hambach mine mentioned above), and the direct health repercussions that could bring to the people of Germany.

Now, all of this is not to rag on Germany’s renewable energy production. Renewable energy is responsible for nearly 50% of energy production within Germany, compared to the United States 12.4%, and their coal production has largely decreased since 2018, especially, when it used to be 168.8 million tons of coal. Germany’s efforts to facilitate renewable energy production are to be admired and followed.

However, this Op-Ed, was written with the intent to bring awareness to the fear that still resides in the use of nuclear power. A large-scale nuclear power accident hasn’t occurred since 2012, in Fukushima, and even in that accident, it was largely responsible for an outside tsunami that compromised the facility. What I do think should be addressed, is the hypocritical ideas held by the Green Party to erase Germany’s nuclear production, while filling the gaps with increased coal production. It cannot be stopped forever, eventually people with come to realize that nuclear will be in our future in terms of energy production.

Works Cited:

Nuclear Ideas

Written by Navid Ghalambor