Sweden held a referendum in 1980 about nuclear power, and the only choice was about how fast our nuclear power plants should be shut down.

It took twenty years until a reactor was closed, and five more years until one whole plant was closed.

During this time, Sweden's energy consumption has of course gone up, and although there's been some increase in wind and water power, the net result is that each time we close a nuclear reactor, we have to import a lot more electricty from Danish or German coal-powered plants.

So the net result for the environment is negative, but the environmentalist movement thinks it's a huge win.

I'm willing to wager that this German proposal will have the exact same end result. The only way to successfully switch to renewable energy is by making renewable energy cheaper than coal or nuclear.

Germany is a leader in solar power. They installed more panels last year than the rest of the world combined. They generate more electricity from solar than Fukushima did. If they can further establish themselves as leaders and experts in new-energy, it'll make them even more disproportionally well positioned to most of Europe.

However, it's a shame they see no future in nuclear. Seems like they are betting against something we've just scratched the surface of (my money is on Thorium)..for the wrong reasons. The damage from the oil and coal that they burn is far worse.

Closing nuclear powerplants early makes for a self-fulfilling prophecy as well, unfortunately.

The only solid argument against nuclear goes along the lines, ``nuclear power is too expensive because of the costs of disposal of wastes''.

Thing is, in normal operation the cost is amortized year by year. Normal life of a nuclear plant is a few decades; say 30 years. Could be longer, but the technological progress is so fast it just makes sensible to replace hardware before it's completely worn down.

But it becomes a hefty one-time fee if the plants are closed mid-life. The overall costs barely go down. The difference in amount of waste is small -- because large portion of nuclear wastes stems from decommissioning of the plant itself. The spent fuel itself is not that much. [1]

And the headlines in press go, ``See? It's too expensive''.

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[1] been touring recently a nuclear powerplant in Greifswald, Germany, that undergoes decommissioning right now. Most of the waste is NOT the fuel, but infrastructure of the plant (granted, it was built with old technology).

Throughout the whole article no mention of any specific alternatives to be used? 23% is a big amount to make up to.

A relevant TED talk by Bill Gates (Bill Gates on energy: Innovating to zero): http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates.html

In short, the most viable option currently, in his opinion, is the thorium reactors. Current uranium reactors can be converted to work with thorium.

"The main point of using thorium, in addition to the proliferation issues with uranium, is that there is 10 fold amount of it available compared to Uranium. If you take into account also the fact that we only use uranium-235 in our nuclear reactors, and this consitutes only 0.7% of the total amount of uranium, the increase is 100 fold.

Thorium reactors also operate by burning uranium. This is created from thorium by bombarding it with neutrons. This forms uranium 232, which is highly radioactive and is hence hard to deal. This is why U232 can't be used for nuclear weapons, it's hard to handle."

Let's see how long this decision holds up, In 2000 they decided to switch off old plants by 2011 (labor+green party). This was anulled by end of 2010 by the conservatives. Only because of Fukushima (and pending elections) did they anull this again. The green party has been winning in the last elections since Fukushima, and the ruling conservatives have lost ground. This is their opportunistic way of trying to avoid becoming meaningless.

In 5 years, energy prices will be high, Fukushima will be forgotten, new reactor designs may be available (pushed by Chinese who will have to depend on nuclear?) Let's see what happens then.

That's more than 11 years to complete this task. Who can predict what will happen after 11 years? Generating electricity from nuclear fusion may be possible. Or we may move our nuclear plants to the moon.

We shouldn't ignore the fact that 70% of France's energy consumption is backed by nuclear plants, and this makes France one of the cleanest country in terms of energy consumption in the world.

I just don't understand why people are so hesitant to invest in nuclear energy, which is extremely cheap, infinitely available, non-polluting and moderately safe (burning coals may emit radioactive materials directly to the air).

Nuclear energy won't kill thousands of people underground (like coal), nor will it kill tens of thousands of bird (like wind mills). It also doesn't trap heat (like what solar panel does to retain all the heat), or emit greenhouse gases.

It seems that nuclear energy is an ideal energy source for the future. We should spend more time and money to find out better ways (like fusion) to build nuclear plants instead of worrying about the rare accidents (in terms of death per watt, I don't think nuclear energy is going to lose out).

Sorry for this rant, but we germans are rather stupid by going down that road. we keep saying that the costs of renewable energies have gone down, but thats only due to massive subsidies.

Thanks to fukushima the green party is like a political Steve Jobs on steroids right now: they can promote whatever dumb legislation and nobody questions it. nobody talks about the coal plants that we gonna need to supplement this. it's astonishingly dumb of my people.

but as we germans have almost no economical education classes in our schools, we're easily fooled. as long as it sounds nice (i.e. humane, ecological, responsible, sustainable blah blah) anyone who calls for soundness is comitting political suicide.

Debunking myths:

"This won't have consequences, it didn't have any in Sweden either."

=> After the nuclear phase-out was enacted in 2000, two power plants were shut down as planned (Stade 2003, Obrigheim 2005).

=> After the Fukushima incident, eight additional plants were shut down and will never return to the grid again.

"This just leads to increasing energy imports."

=> Germany exported 9 billion kWh in 1Q2010, can hands-down afford shutting down nuclear power plants. Source: http://www.klimaretter.info/energie/hintergrund/6271-deutsch...

Good move aka burning bridges. If managed right, this will enhance the development and use of better technologies.

Italy has always been nuclear free because it couldn't afford it. I guess sometimes it pays off being economically weaker.

I guess it is pretty obvious that a non-nuclear energy strategy will definitely result in higher energy prices in the short term. That said, some people might be comfortable with this as long as the price increase is moderate.

In the long run however, renewable energy sources are absolutely the way to go. It might actually pay off nicely to invest a lot of resources in renewable energy early on and come out ahead of the pack once coal, uranium, gas and oil become more expensive.

Whether or not Germany will actually be able to carry this off and reap the benefits of it will remain to be seen, though.

Also discussed at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2598475

I'm a German and I think myself that it is really stupid. The way to think should not be "Don't do nuclear power anymore" but "do X". We have no plan what X is. So we didn't solve any problem.It's so frustrating. We really had a chance with the strong movement from most people here.

In march, I was flying over Germany on a sunny day. I saw hundreds of wind turbines polluting the landscape. They are ugly, inefficient, and apparently a huge danger for the birds. I really cannot see how that is environmentally friendly.

AFAIK, nuclear fuel cannot be produced, it can only be distilled. So, we're only using whatever radioactive materials exist on Earth anyhow. Were they mined from deep underground? Let's bury the waste deep underground, and there should be no problem.

I see three long-term solutions. 1) Use nuclear energy in a safe and responsible way. 2) wait until solar panels are developed enough and use them. However, both these solutions still have a big problem: batteries suck (they are heavy, inefficient, expensive and toxic, short-lived). Final solution: 3) grow genetically modified algae and use them to produce bio-diesel. The only problem would be the concentration of CO2 and other exhaust gasses in urban areas.

Well, that's a shame. I think the famed German ingenuity and attention to detail could provide some really great nuclear innovation and development.

Meanwhile Japan itself, which has weathered the effects of several nuclear disasters (Fukushima being the mildest), is doing no such thing.

And apparently Germany will continue to import power derived from nuclear plants.