Germany’s Nuclear Disaster
It’s only getting worse.
After decades of gargantuan renewable expansion, Germany is one of the greenest countries on the planet. Or at least it would be. You see, Germany has just agreed to spend €16 billion ($17.36 billion) to build four enormous natural gas energy plants. Why this obviously backward step? Well, even though multiple studies over the years have shown nuclear energy produces less carbon emissions and is considerably safer than solar energy, Germany has been trying to phase out its considerable fleet of nuclear power plants since as early as 2003. This wasn’t a logical move, and was instead driven by political point-scoring and the nuclear misinformation that is rife in the West. The phase-out was completed last year, leaving a gaping hole in Germany’s energy supply, which only natural gas could expand fast enough to fill, hence these eye-wateringly expensive and climate-defacing natural gas power plants. But how bad is this situation really?
When the German government announced these natural gas power plants a month ago, they described them as “modern, highly flexible and climate-friendly.” This isn’t as much of an oxymoron as you might think; instead, it is just profoundly misleading. As the German government pointed out, these power plants can, in theory, be converted to run on carbon-neutral hydrogen produced from renewable energy…