Germany is shutting down coal power plants, not just nuclear. Last year eight lignite fired plants and ten hard coal fired plants were shut down. A total of 7.6 GW, compare that to the 4.3 GW of nuclear that was also shut down last year.
Would they have been able to shutdown coal/gas faster if the nukes were kept running? If the 4.3 GW of nuclear was still around, how many more plants—with their corresponding CO2 emissions—could have been eliminated?
Could Germany reduce its dependency on Russian gas with more nuclear?
> Would they have been able to shutdown coal/gas faster if the nukes were kept running?
Probably, but it's not just the politicians and the population who don't want nuclear power, it's also the operators. They're not interested anymore as they can't plan ahead. If the current government decided that the nuclear power plants should run longer they would all need to get modernised first, meaning the operators would have to invest and who says the next government won't shut down them down again. Nobody is going to invest in building a new nuclear power plant that may or may not enter operation in 15-20 years.
> Could Germany reduce its dependency on Russian gas with more nuclear?
Short answer: No. Germany mostly relies on gas for heating, not for electricity.
> Nobody is going to invest in building a new nuclear power plant that may or may not enter operation in 15-20 years.
No where in my post did I say anything about new plants. Simply keep the current ones going until (a) coal/gas is retired, (b) enough renewables are built to then start retiring current nuclear plants.
> Short answer: No. Germany mostly relies on gas for heating, not for electricity.
How cold does Germany get? Some heat pumps can work down to -20C:
Even the old plants would require investment for modernisation.
Winters can get cold depending on the area, but probably warmer on average than Canada. There are currently around 30 million households (around 75%) heating with either gas (50%) or oil (25%). Don't get me wrong, they will all eventually have to switch to some other heating method, most likely to heat pumps, but that will take a few years to maybe a decade.
Right, you're a logical person, this is how logical people that care about the environment would do it. I can't explain why the people in power don't naturally come to this conclusion, unless I account for corruption, then I can make sense of it.
* stop shutting down current nuclear electrical generation capacity
* build more solar and wind capacity
* as more renewable capacity comes online use it retire fossil fuel generators
Once all the carbon-emitting stuff is offline then perhaps look at shutting down current nuclear.
You know: the opposite of what Germany is doing.