A bombshell report has found that Germany could have been more effective at reducing its carbon footprint while saving hundreds of billions of euros if it had invested in nuclear power rather than green energy projects.
Leftist-run governments in Europe’s top economic powerhouse made a devastating error by transitioning away from nuclear power and focussing instead on so-called “renewable” sources of energy like wind and solar, industrial engineer Jan Emblemsvåg of the University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway has said according to German daily Welt.
While nuclear energy accounted for around 30 per cent of Germany’s electricity in the year 2000, just over two decades later in 2022, the country, under the direction of the leftist Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens, shut down its last nuclear power plant.
Emblemsvåg, based on calculations on outcomes of other nuclear powers, found that not only would have “decarbonized more if it had invested in nuclear power plants” it also would have done so “with significantly less nominal expenditure”.
Although estimates vary on the cost of Berlin’s green transition, according to the study, since 2002, Germany has spent 696 billion euros, including 310 billion in direct state subsidies, on renewables. This has coincided with a 25 per cent decline in carbon emissions, the Norwegian researcher found.
However, if Germany had decided to stick with nuclear power during the same time, the country would have saved 600 billion euros while producing more emissions-free power than all “green” sources combined. Additionally, if Germany had invested further in nuclear power in 2002, it could have seen emissions fall by around 73 per cent (nearly three times the current rate) while still saving 300 billion euros compared to the green agenda.
“Regardless of the uncertainties in the data and assumptions,” Emblemsvåg said, “there can be no doubt that Germany would have done significantly better in terms of both spending and greenhouse gas emissions than in the current energy transition.”
“By and large, overall, the alternative policy of maintaining the existing nuclear power plants in 2002 and building new ones would have halved expenditure and Germany would have achieved its climate goals… Nuclear power plants would have caused much lower costs.”
Although Germany could have “already had a carbon-free electricity supply” if it had invested earlier on in nuclear, future investments are still needed for the green transition, with the management consultancy firm McKinsey estimating that around six trillion euros will have been spent in total by 2045.
While there were consistent warnings that the green agenda could endanger Germany’s role as the economic engine of Europe, Berlin has only decided to double down. The previous government of Chancellor Angela Merkel was also reportedly caught flat-footed by the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which resulted in drastic cuts to the supply of gas and oil from Russia to Germany, severely hampering its economy.
A declassified document, produced just months before the Russian invasion, revealed that the Merkel government — which at the time included current Chancellor Olaf Scholz — believed that increasing Germany’s reliance on gas from Russia through the Nord Stream pipelines would “not jeopardize the security” of energy supplies to Germany and the EU.
This proved to be a fatal miscalculation, with the pipelines being sabotaged just months later and the decision by Vladimir Putin to cut off shipments plunging Germany into an energy crisis, with no nuclear power to fall back on.
Amid the soaring costs of energy, in addition to other industry factors, German auto giant Volkswagen is now reportedly planning on cutting staff and potentially closing factories in Germany for the first time in the history of the company.