German poll: Majority for return to nuclear energy – DW – 04/04/2025
www.dw.com
Some 55% of Germans favor a reversal of nuclear policy according to a marketing poll. The issue has been a point of contention between parties seeking to form a coalition government.

Summary

A new Innofact poll shows 55% of Germans support returning to nuclear power, a divisive issue influencing coalition talks between the CDU/CSU and SPD.

While 36% oppose the shift, support is strongest among men and in southern and eastern Germany.

About 22% favor restarting recently closed reactors; 32% support building new ones.

Despite nuclear support, 57% still back investment in renewables. The CDU/CSU is exploring feasibility, but the SPD and Greens remain firmly against reversing the nuclear phase-out, citing stability and past policy shifts.

  • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    74·
    7 hours ago

    Three Mile Island was a partial meltdown, which may sound close to an actual meltdown, it’s not even close in terms of danger.

    Fukushima failed because the plants were old and not properly upkept. Had they followed the guidelines for keeping the plant maintained, it would not have happened.

    That’s not really the fault of nuclear power.

    Chernobyl was also partially caused by lack of adherence to safety measures, but also faulty plant design.

    I’d say, being generous, only one of those three events says anything about the safety of nuclear power, and even then, we have come a very long way.

    So one event… Ever.

    • FooBarrington@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      5 hours ago

      Chernobyl shouldn’t have happened due to safety measures, yet it did. Fukushima shouldn’t have happened, yet it did. The common denominator is human error, but guess who’ll be running any other nuclear power plants? Not beavers.

    • saimen@feddit.orgEnglish
      64·
      7 hours ago

      How is a nuclear meltdown not the fault of nuclear power? Of course you can prevent it by being super careful and stuff, but it is inherent to nuclear power that it is super dangerous. What is the worst that can happen with a wind turbine? It falls, that’s it.

      • luce [they/she]@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        41·
        2 hours ago

        if we were to either replace all power on earth with nuclear, or replace all power on earth with wind, more people would die from- idk, falling out of wind turbines- then from deaths due to nuclear.

        Fukushima had a fucking earthquake and a tsunami theiwn at it, AND the company which made it cut corners. It was still, much, much less bad than it could have been and the reactor still partially withstood a lot of damage.

        In the United States at least (and i assume the rest of the world) nuclear energy is so overegulated that many reactors can have meltdowns without spelling disaster for the nearby area. Nuclear caskets (used to transport and store wastes) can withstand fucking missle strikes.

        Im not going to pretend that there arent genuine issues with nuclear, such as cost and construction time(*partially caused by the overegulation), but genuine nuclear disaster has only ever resulted from the worst of human decisions combined with the worst of circumstances. Do i trust humans not to make shitty mistakes? No, not with all this overegulation, but still, even counting Fukushima and Chernobyl, more people die from wind (and especially fossil fuels) then nuclear per terawatt of electricity production.