On ash and slag heaps that are incredibly toxic to their surroundings. Current research suggests that living in the vicinity of such a heap has an immense effect on cancer rates.

> Given that such a place must be safe for hundreds of thousands of years, they have not yet found one.

Pah! We have a lot of those places but excessive federalism has every German state blocking any concrete plan.

How about you answer his question?

given that we dont have nukes, and we wont for 10 years even if we started today, and we arent going to start them because theyre economic disasters...

in the medium term its going to be batteries + solar/wind + gas backups for rare weather events. If we get the total annual use of gas down to a very achievable 10% we're still massively winning climate wise. California is getting there, 45% gas in 2022, 25% gas in 2025, and adding batteries at massively increasing rate. Full coverage of an average night is within sight, using gas just for shortfalls.

We can hopefully transition the last peaking gas backup usage to something else in the long term (hydrogen? SMRs if they ever exist?) but it isnt _that_ important in the grand arc of saving the climate.

What is that storage you speak of?

Not only that, aggressive cuts to the EEG subsidies killed dogfooding their own solar industry in the country.

> It won't matter that it is a lie, as nuclear was destroyed by the conservatives (just like our solar industry, incidentally), not the green party.

Now that is a lie. The anti-nuclear push came from the Greens in the 90s. Conservatives just used it for a quick win once that policy became very popular in Germany.

Germany has one of the world's highest energy costs because taxes on electricity are astronomical. This is a selfmade problem.

taxes are needed to fund infrastructure or pay curtailment

> The Russian gas crisis in 2022 reshuffled the cards entirely: Germany realized that constructing its entire energy policy on a foreign asset (Russian Gas) was not really a smart move.

Man do I wish that were the case. In any way, we simply don't hold the cards in the EU as much anymore as the rest of the EU has recognized that we're idiots, and they're certainly not keen on joining us in that regard.

Surely you include the rare earths needed for solar panels as well in all of your comparisons. Nuclear fuel is incredibly energy dense.

Yes, but at what cost? The sun is free. Nuclear means dependence.

> how the fuck does nuclear power make any economic sense

Because these plants run for 80+ years (some countries are now considering 100) while most renewables run for 25 at most. And also because `plus batteries` doesn't exist. The world battery capacity isn't enough to power California for a single week. Large scale battery technology isn't even in its infancy, it just doesn't exist.

Don't forget, you've paid for the nuclear power plant once. You will pay for a new set of renewable capabilities every 25 years in <current-year + 25> dollars.

25 year replacement for solar is a myth. [1] . They may degrade to ~80% but they keep on working and producing, so far it seems almost indefinitely.

[1] https://www.ecoticias.com/en/goodbye-to-the-idea-that-solar-...

So in essence they studied all of six (6) panels in a non-dusty region with a mild climate and without notable saline corrosion AND the article even mentions that most other studies are well in the 25-30 year range. Also the study clearly outlines that older silicone panels can't be compared against modern mass produced variants. Finally the study only examines modules that are still working, failed or removed systems are not in the dataset so you have heavy hidden distortion.

The sample size is extremely limited. Six systems are not at all robust enough for global conclusions. This popsci article of yours doesn't hold up to scrutiny and neither it nor the study are enough to make sweeping generalizations like declaring the common 25 year lifecycle a myth.

The “common 25 year lifecycle” was never a drop dead expectation. That’s usually just what they’re warrantied for. It’s always been a common misunderstanding

Edit: If you don’t trust my source , please show one of your own that proves they need to be replaced at 25yrs