Using more coal is the only tool you can use in a 4 week timeline but it's not great long term.
this post was submitted on 01 May 2026
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subisdizing fossil fuels during shortage is opposite of reasonable policy. While only path to prevent global warming is carbon tax and dividend, giving people more money during shortages is better policy than subsidies. If it is calculated that average person will face $100 in extra costs due to fuel prices, giving $50 in payroll tax cuts, and $50 cash to everyone is path to compensating both employees forced to get to work, and all people. Whether EVs or bicycles or transit or just paying more for gas for their cars, people are empowered towards solutions that maximize their welfare.
For Germany to triple down on geopolitical extortion energy is a special kind of stupid.
They put a gas lobbyist in charge of the economy and energy. And she now wants to do the whole "Tankrabatt" thing again, which turned out to be a gift for the oil firms the first time around.
That's symbolic for what conservative voters do: Doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different outcome. Just insanely stupid.
But doing the obviously right thing and build up renewable energies as fast as possible, could be seen as confirmation, that the greens were right. An the path now my led to unrest or fascism, but at least you will never have to admit the greens might be right about renewables and climate change.
What are you talking about? It was a resounding success and it will work exactly as well this time around.
The fossil fuel industry will get sooo much money.
I get the joke, that's why I was referring to the voters as the insane idiots, not the politicians. The politicians are just corrupt liars.
What are you talking about? It was a resounding success and it will work exactly as well this time around.
Hard as it is to believe, conservative voters have an ideology. They want more hierarchy, more exploitation, more oppression, and more cruelty because for them that is stability and justice and order and a winner's due.
People's prosperity is not the point, their own prosperity is not the point, the cruelty is the point. That is why conservative women get abortions and vote to end abortion, that's why conservative people of color vote to let the schools their kids go to be defunded. They would rather get punished and suffer than live in a world where prosperity comes freely.
Sometimes they argue that necessity is the mother of invention, sometimes they argue for a religious necessity for hierarchy, sometimes they talk about it being a cruel world and needing to be ready through practice and preparation, sometimes they find the thought of violence glorious, sometimes they want to subsume their identity into an organization that is powerful.
Whatever the case, the cruelty is the point.
And water is wet.
Sadly, shutting down all nuclear powerplants to rely on coal and oil power is not a great combination with replacing all ICE cars with electrical ones.
Strangely solar, wind and hydro power are cheaper to build, maintain and cheaper to make electric energy available.
Additionally they don't create highly dangerous waste that needs to be kept safe for a veeeeeery long time and for which no working solution has been found.
What's mostly missing is for the ongoing change towards renawables is storage, but hey, the ascent of electric vehicles comes in handy for that.
Being still in favor of nuclear today is about as tone-deaf as being in favor of still using fossil energy.
Those systems cannot keep up with demand at present never mind the growing need. Nuclear is the best we have weather people want to admit it to themselves or not.
Nuclear is neither able to compete with cost of production per kWh nor with speed of construction of renawables, whether people want to admit to whomever or not.
And the winter nights with basically no light, freezing temps and no wind will stop coming, right? Is your argument that it's preferable to burn coal or oil?
Winter nights are often stormy: wind turbines do their job.
It would seem you and I have very different winters. At -20C, I've never seen more than a gentle breeze.
Smrs are exploding in popularity for this very reason.
Because they don't have to factor in the cost of dealing with the nuclear waste.
This is an error that's been made and still being made everywhere.
Being still in favor of nuclear today is about as tone-deaf as being in favor of still using fossil energy.
Which Germany seems to be, seeing how you import loads and loads of coal and oil power from Poland, not to mention nuclear power from France and Sweden (among others).
I searched for info and there seems to be a clear trend according to https://www.iea.org/countries/germany/energy-mix
which fossil is going down, nuclear having gone to 0, total energy imports going down, renawables going up.
Do you say such a transformation can be done over night?
Looking at the USA in comparison I come to the conclusion that a lot of countries are on the right path.
Your electrical production went from >5 million TJ in 2000 to ~3 million TJ in 2024. You seem to be relying on everyone else producing at times with no wind and no sun. Like cold winter nights when everyone else needs their power too. 70-80 Euro cents per kWh was unheard of just 5 years ago. It's not even uncommon where I live now that you've removed what dependability your grid had.
https://www.iea.org/countries/germany/electricity shows a different picture regarding electrical production.
Where's your source?
Btw. you can stop addressing/blaming me; you have no idea where I reside.
My bad. I mixed up "energy" with "electricity", which is not the same thing. Was looking at the domestic energy production graph (second line graph on mobile at least) at https://www.iea.org/countries/germany/energy-mix .
Edit: Your source states that Germany is importing 81% more electricity "now" (2024) than in the year 2000. Still "just" 5.8% net import, but seems (to me) as if my point still stands even if the numbers were the wrong ones.
Fuck nuclear... it accounted for 6% of the energy mix (-ish.. taking this number from memory) and we still don't know what to do with the waste. Also it creates further dependence on acquiring uranium from Russia. So no, that did not make as big of an impact as many think.
Why was it 6%? Was it because you decided 30 or so years ago that you should stop with nuclear instead of servicing your plants? Seeing as you import loads of coal, oil and nuclear power from all over Europe, maybe your electrical system isn't as green as you seemingly love to claim? (You're far from the first German I've spoken to about this topic whom held the same position)
Not sure who you're yelling at, your communication style is unnecessarily confrontational. I am rarely aligned with what the German government does, nor was I involved in any of the decision making. But I do believe that nuclear has no long term future, especially if we need to import uranium from abroad, specifically Russia.
Well maintained plants might be safe, but we see how every summer several need to be throttled down because cooling water is running out. Noone has figured out where we put the waste, in classic human fashion we bury it in the ground and hope someone will figure it out before that becomes its own disaster.
I don't claim Germany has green energy, yet it made some significant progress in the past decade. Despite most governments repeatedly making the worst possible decisions. Like crippling the solar industry in the east or handing our tax money over to big oil and gas. Admittedly having to import most of our solar panels from China isn't great either, but I prefer a once of purchase over a subscription.
I'm bothered because your policies have fucked up my electrical bill. Nowadays it's €200 a month in the summer and €1200 in the winter. Used to be €200 in the coldest months when there's -20C, basically no sunshine and no wind to speak of. But sure, fuck nuclear.
Sweden has one (1) reserve power plant. Oil based. Has been turned on twice in the past 30 years. First time was 22 hours or so during a super cold day in ~2014. Second time in summer 2022. Has been running for almost 4 years and still counting, because it makes financial sense to provide Germany with electricity produced through burning 400 liters (regular bathtub capacity) of oil per second. Please, fix your national production somehow.
Oh no, I didn't realise you pay more for energy now. Of course then let's build more nuclear power plants because they're famously cheap to build, operate and maintain. You sound like all my favorite Germans suddenly outraged by war(crimes) because gas prices went up.
Electricity prices regularly go into the negative on windy/sunny days. It's not me ripping you off with your energy bill. So instead of repeating populist rhetoric, I suggest you start yelling at your own government. We need to stop importing overpriced LNG and oil and continue to focus on renewables (for Sweden probably geothermal and hydro). Don't worry, I'll be doing the same here. Europe can figure this out together if we only start yelling at the right people.