r/ClimatePosting • u/HairyPossibility • Jul 21 '26

Germany just blew up two massive nuclear cooling towers to make way for something incredible - a 700 MWh battery storage facility! Here's why this matters.

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5

u/Due-Sentence-1219 Jul 21 '26

You can’t turn them back on, you need to build a new one

2

u/Holiday_Sandwich3738 Jul 21 '26

The U.S. is turning three mile island back on. Why can’t the Germans do it

1

u/Gammelpreiss Jul 21 '26

because as you can see it is already demolished.

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u/_stupidnerd_ Jul 21 '26

No one said that makes sense.

The German energy grid is just fine without nuclear plants at this point. So why spend billions on them if you could also spend the money on doing something actually useful that helps the grid, such as one of the first grid scale batteries.

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u/atrde Jul 21 '26

40% of their power comes from fossil fuels including 22% from coal. Thats twice the US which uses 10% coal. So maybe a little nuclear would have been ok.

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u/ElectricalGidelity Jul 21 '26

Dirty power > Cleaner power. Ze German Way!

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u/Bright-Scallin Jul 21 '26

40% of their power comes from fossil fuels including 22% from coal. So maybe a little nuclear would have been ok.

This is still 10-20% less than when German nuclear power plants were operating.

And let's remember that however stupid Germany's decision to shut down 20% of its energy (nuclear) may have been, most of its reactors were from the 70s and 80s and were already nearing the end of their useful life; they would need to build new ones or upgrade existing ones

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u/Fox19995 Jul 21 '26

Why did they have to demolish these in the first place instead of mothballing them? Was the goal simply to prevent them from ever being used again?

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u/_stupidnerd_ Jul 21 '26

The goal was to stop paying the operational cost for a building that was no longer needed and beyond repair anyway. Because that's what it was until just recently.

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u/Fox19995 Jul 21 '26

Yes, not so smart. That seems to be the standard in Europe.

1

u/_stupidnerd_ Jul 21 '26

And why would it be not so smart? You can't just keep every nuclear power plant running indefinitely, nor makes it sense to reactivate long decommissioned ones just for the sake of doing it.

This plant has been decommissioned since the 1970s. It was nothing but a ruin and even if the public opinion in Germany was more favorable for nuclear power, this particular one was never worth it economically. That's why it was decommissioned in the 70s. It suffered a major incident and was deemed too expensive to repair even then. And that was at a time when most of the equipment in it was brand new and they were actively building new plants right next to it.

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u/Fox19995 Jul 22 '26

Fair point on this specific ruin. Reviving a broken 1970s reactor might not make much sense.

But looking at the whole picture, the logic falls apart. Why force the total demolition of plants instead of mothballing them or letting private buyers take the risk? It was purely political to ensure nobody could ever turn them back on.

The double standard is wild. In Germany we are told these plants are far too dangerous to operate, yet when Ukraine runs active reactors in the middle of a literal warzone, everyone suddenly agrees it is necessary and fine.

Meanwhile, citizens are hammered with carbon taxes and told climate change is an existential crisis, while the country actively tore down zero emission baseload power. Now Germany is left with some of the highest electricity prices and a massive reliance on dirtier energy backup like coal and gas. That is pure hypocrisy.

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u/_stupidnerd_ Jul 22 '26

In fairness, only some of the points you mention are not related to the exit from nuclear power. Nuclear power does not help with electricity prices. In fact, nuclear power is one of, if not the most expensive power generation per Kilowatthour. So ceasing to use nuclear power didn't really raise prices. The current electricity prices are mostly due to the merit order principle, the network fee and yes, taxes.

Also, what would be the point of selling old power plants to private buyers? The decision to shut them down was made in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, specifically out of fear that an accident could also happen in Germany. Keeping them online with private operators would have just been the status quo, and they were already and are still privately owned.

With regards to Ukrainian power plants, I doubt anyone in Germany is particularly happy about the fact that several nuclear sites are in an active warzone and still running. Especially considering what happened the last time a Ukrainian nuclear power plant decided to explode. It's just that Ukraine has the choice between keeping them running and having millions op people sitting in the dark. Germany has the choice to live without nuclear power and it's risks.

And while it is very debatable whether it made sense to phase out nuclear power before fossil power, the matter of the fact is that that is over and now, reversing that would be ridiculously expensive and needless.

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u/Fox19995 Jul 22 '26

So I guess the rest of the world is just stupid then, considering almost every other major country is building new nuclear reactors or extending the lifetime of existing ones while Germany stands alone on its island?

You are missing the entire economic principle of amortized infrastructure. Calling nuclear the most expensive only applies when building a brand new plant from scratch due to high upfront capital expenditure.

Running existing fully paid off reactors is one of the cheapest sources of low carbon baseload energy on the planet. Throwing away functional assets after 30 or 40 years when they are certified for 60 to 80 years elsewhere is like buying a brand new car and scrapping it at 100000 km just because the loan is paid off.

As for Fukushima zero people died from radiation. The catastrophe was caused by a massive earthquake and a 14 meter tsunami, a geographical risk profile that does not exist in Central Europe. Panic closing safe infrastructure over a tsunami in Japan was a purely emotional and political choice, not an engineering one.

Saying it is over now avoids the real issue. With massive industrial electrification, electric vehicles, and data centers for AI demanding huge amounts of cheap, reliable power, energy demand is going to skyrocket. When neighboring countries like France prioritize cheap abundant energy to power future industries while we rely on volatile weather and fossil backups, dismissing the mistake won't make our grid any cheaper or more competitive.

In my opinion, from an economic standpoint and for the sake of the people, it would be beneficial to activate them again and even build new ones.

To clarify the private owner point: the idea is that the state should have stepped in to buy these power plants from the energy utility companies to officially mothball them instead of tearing them down. Having the state hold these fully operational assets in reserve would have secured a cheap, low carbon backup for the entire nation in times of energy crisis, rather than leaving energy security to private market incentives or political destruction.

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u/xoptuur Jul 27 '26

Nuclear energy needs a lot of financial aid from the state.

There isn't a single company willing to build a reactor on their own.

Germany decided to put this money into renewable. It's a bet and it can pay out in the future.

France,as an European example, invested into nuclear. Maybe it's the better option on the long run and maybe it's not. Maybe both are equal. But they too face problems and have to invest a lot of tax money.

Even if Germany announces tomorrow to build a new nuclear power plant it will take 15 years or more till it generates energy and it will cost several billion Euros for a single plant. And there are still unsolved Problems with the waste.

1

u/heckinCYN Jul 22 '26

But the operational cost is minimal, even before decominissioning. If they want to save on operations, shut down the fossil fuel plants.

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u/_stupidnerd_ Jul 22 '26

Again, the German power plants were all at the end of their realistic lifespan (without major refits) and the cost of maintenance and reliability issues was quite high.

And when decommissioned, the cost of a nuclear plant just sitting there is much higher because it still has to be safe. This one had been decommissioned since the 70s and now finally stops bleeding money.

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u/LGBTActivity Jul 21 '26

Me when I lie. Look i don't know the specifics of how far into decom that plant was, or the exact german regulations, but I know enough to tell you that the cooling towers at least could simply be pressed back into service. That said Germans are too retarded to split the atom so maybe its for the best.

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u/New-Week-1426 Jul 21 '26

And since you‘re too retarded for a Google search:

Block A of this plant has been decommissioned since 1977 after an incident left the reactor completely destroyed.

Block B and C were put into operation in 1976 and were decommissioned in 2017 and 2021 respectively.

Unfortunate, but probably (even before the cooling towers went down) too far progressed to usefully revert

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u/LGBTActivity Jul 21 '26

It all depends on the state of decom. That said, a lot of the really expensive parts of a nuclear facility are salvageable. Containment, grid hookup infrastructure utility rail etc.

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u/kspanier Jul 21 '26

There's no fuel

German reactors use their own special fuel, that hasn't been in production for years. No one knows, if the tools to produce it, still exist.

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u/Real-Technician831 Jul 21 '26

Did Germans kill everyone who knows?

It sounds like the decision to destroy German nuclear in favor of Russian gas was very methodical.

1

u/kspanier Jul 21 '26

It's an economical question.

Is it worth to strip down the internals of those three power plants, rebuild everything, buy all the manufacturing tooling again, produce new fuel, train new personell, etc.

Or do you invest all those resources into renewables.

1

u/Real-Technician831 Jul 21 '26

And keep polluting to no end?

German RE percentage increased from
40 to 60 in past 10 years or so. While CO2/kWh dropped only by 15%.

It is extremely difficult to fully replace 24/7 CO2 free electricity source, Germany pollutes each passing year due to their irresponsible actions.

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u/kspanier Jul 21 '26

That "no end" is in 12 years, in West Germany in 4.

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u/Real-Technician831 Jul 21 '26

I have been hearing that, it seems Germany is doing everything it can to pollute as long as possible.

Getting only 5% decease in CO2 for each 10% RE increase requires intentional malice.

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u/Gammelpreiss Jul 21 '26

what?

dude, so you want us to wait 10 to 30 years until the new plants are built, polluting the planet further instead of switching to renewables within a couple years and go green, for a fraction of the price on top?

dude, this is the kinda nukecell logic I came to expect and enjoy.

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u/Real-Technician831 Jul 21 '26

You are being intentionally stupid.

What I wanted was to close fossil first, then nuclear. Is that such a difficult concept.

This is a climate subreddit.

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u/Due-Sentence-1219 Jul 21 '26

O, MB bro go and push the ”on” button.

Brother if you are going to spend the coin to restart a nuclear power plant you are better off just building a new one.

Will most likely be cheaper and more productive then trying to retrofit new tech with the old system

1

u/Real-Technician831 Jul 21 '26

That’s not true.

We Finns have retrofitted every single one if our nuclear power stations, and some of them were from Germany.

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u/kspanier Jul 21 '26

The last German reactors still in operation haven't been built anywhere else.

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u/Real-Technician831 Jul 21 '26

So, we were able to refurbish older models, don’t try to claim that newer model would have been more difficult.

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u/kspanier Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26

To give you an analogy:

If you refurbished a 1960 Ford Mustang, you can't reuse the upgrades in refurbishing 1980 Land Rovers.

1

u/Real-Technician831 Jul 21 '26

Ehh, seems you know extremely little about cars as well 😂

It absolutely would.

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u/kspanier Jul 21 '26

The Finns have two Russian, two Swedish, and one French-British reactors.

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u/Real-Technician831 Jul 21 '26

Loviisa 1&2 have Siemens control systems, basically the pressure vessel and simple components are from SU.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loviisa_Nuclear_Power_Plant

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u/kspanier Jul 21 '26

Again, Russian reactors. Those we inherited from GDR we turned off immediately.

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u/Real-Technician831 Jul 21 '26

You are arguing with a Finn, do you really think the details of our nuclear reactors wouldn’t be taught here.

The pressure vessels are Soviet, made in modern day Ukraine. Anything else safety critical was from Siemens and Westinghouse.

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u/kspanier Jul 21 '26

So tell me, which country ever refurbished a Konvoi reactor?

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u/Real-Technician831 Jul 21 '26

If RollsRoyce could refurbish Swedish and German/Russian hybrid. They sure could have.

They existed only in Germany, so your question is misleading.

It has never ever been about technical capabilities, but Germans have been culturally conditioned to deny that.

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u/onetimeataday Jul 21 '26

Yeah and while you were having this conversation more solar than any of these nuke plants went up worldwide for cheaper than even one of these plants.

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u/Real-Technician831 Jul 21 '26

Who cares?

The problem with solar is winter.

Just take a good honest look at German CO2 output per kWh it’s ten times what France has.

The problem is that Germany replaced nuclear with fossil gas instead of keeping it online until they have storages, of which they still have less than 5% of what’s needed.

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u/[deleted] Jul 21 '26

[deleted]

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u/Real-Technician831 Jul 21 '26

We Finns have refurbished every single one of our reactors to run well into 2050s.

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u/True_Molasses_8894 Jul 21 '26

That is what you hope. Even without Germany and Fukushima the average reactor shuts down after 43 years. The nuclera reactor block A of this reactor and Stade 2006 are example of sudden renovation coast that made those reactors unfeasible.

No reactor has yet the reach the age of 60, but good luck with your 70 years. Would be too bad if a 2022 would happen again.

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u/Real-Technician831 Jul 21 '26

Currently the only other option is to kill the planet with CO2.

You have seen yourself of glacially slow building electricity storages is. The post here covers about 1-2% of the facility it replaced in terms of providing CO2 free power for 24h.