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.
There’s nothing more to come. Nuclear power is slow and uneconomical.
Joe Kaeser, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Siemens Energy: “There isn’t a single nuclear power plant in the world that makes economic sense,” he said on the ARD program Maischberger on November 27, 2024.
https://www.tagesschau.de/faktenfinder/farbebekennen-weidel-faktencheck-100.html?at_medium=mastodon
A fact check by the Fraunhofer Institute on nuclear energy states: “For example, around €2.5 billion would have to be raised to cover the nuclear waste generated. Overall, considerable short-term investments would be required.” (for the construction of a new power plant)
https://www.ikts.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ikts/abteilungen/umwelt_und_verfahrenstechnik/technologieoekonomik_nachhaltigkeitsanalyse/oekonomische_analyse_nachhaltigkeit/241030_Fraunhofer-Faktencheck_Kernenergie.pdf
Also the time it would take to build new power plants and get them to run would be something lile 20-25 years. We dont have that much time to get a grip on climate change so it doesnt matter annyways. Either we get 100% renewables untill then or we are fucked annyways.
I also have the real cost of building a new reactor in mind when thinking of Germany getting back into nuclear.
Is the economic sense really a good argument? That implies that a privatized group needs to make profit, all external effects paid for, and still be able to give you a good price.
If the government builds this with the aim of supplying cheap energy to people and industry with no profit margin then does this all matter?
The government spends large sums of money on this that and the other and the return of investment on these things are obscure or manifest over longer time horizons like building infrastructure etc
I am not against renewables, just to say that. I could not have too many windmills etc and the arguments against them are unconvincing.
No, it’s not about privatized groups. Even the government has limited money (they can print more, but that leads to inflation). This means the money should be spent efficiently, so we get the most out of it. Nuclear is - by far - the most expensive form of energy we have. We can build more renewables + storage with the same money.
The only way to make an expensive energy source cheap is by subsidizing it. We’ll get more out of the same amount of money if we build cheap energy sources.