Germany Quitting Nuclear Doesn’t Doom the Energy Transition – by Akshat Rathi and Will Mathis (Bloomberg News – January 11, 2022)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) The last few months have been a rollercoaster for energy markets in Europe. Even before winter began, traders were freaking out that the continent might run out of natural gas before spring. Some even bought the fuel at 10 times the average price in 2020.

In the middle of all that, Germany moved ahead with a plan to shut off nearly 50% of its nuclear power plants, with the rest scheduled to close by the end of 2022.

Some asked how a climate-forward country could lay waste to a source of zero-carbon power, especially when there’s a shortage of it. Others pointed out that Germany’s renewables investments are for naught if it has to fill up the nuclear quota using dirty coal.

Outrageous, right? Not so fast, says Nikos Tsafos, an energy and climate analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It’s very easy to solve climate change if I’m not politically constrained.”

For the rest of this article: https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/germany-quitting-nuclear-doesn-t-doom-the-energy-transition-1.1705902