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.
in retrospect, i understand France’s long-held stance around 2000 that it wants to rely mostly on nuclear. it wasn’t clear, back then, how long fossil fuels would be available (it was predicted they would last another 40 years) so they thought “oh well, uranium will be available for a longer time”. renewable energy wasn’t an (economic) possibility at that time. now that we have cheap solar energy, i suspect the last nuclear power plant worldwide will be shut down sometime around 2040.
2040 huh?
My prediction is a record number of new plants going online in 2040.
Especially as there are literal factories being built to specifically crank out Small Modular Reactors.
We’re looking at a future where every small town can have their own reactor, providing enough power for that town but not large enough to ever melt down.
i suppose you’re also thinking that’s because we need steady output?
which is a fallacy; we had constant generation in the past so consumption adapted and became constant; consumption would not naturally be constant, it would be higher in the daytime.
Wind and solar cannot set grid frequency.
They just can’t. You need a turbine to set frequency.
And yes, the grid frequency matters.
So yes, we will always need a base load. And what better way than a small modular reactor, keeping the grid local and modular.
Or we can build out so much wind and solar that we have to have massive transmission lines running across the country, and then we would still need to curtail that power during peak supply, while also not getting enough generation when solar and wind fail.
And then you still need a turbine to set the grid frequency.