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.
Which is why they should never have been decommissioned in the first place.
So we made a mistake, and to make up for it, we should make another one?
We made a mistake, and to make up for it, we should right the mistake. Unbelievable the way people’s brains just switch off when it comes to nuclear power.
Yeah, people just think “nuclear = good” without considering the time to build new reactors, the economic efficiency, and similar factors.
It’s true. People also discount nuclear because it’s a scary word. We should be researching any and all renewables, or we’re all going to have a very bad few decades (if we make it that far).
Sure, I’m not against research! But I am against diverting investments from renewables to nuclear, because this unavoidably slows down fossil phaseout.
Those plants were very old and already had their lifespan extended a couple times (for a lot of money). Ultimately they were decommissioned before the next end-of-life date, which perhaps was a bit early, but keeping them open indefinitely just wasn’t feasible.
Consider the downtime if they had decommissioned with the idea of building a new plant in the future. The future would look much less uncertain when it comes to energy needs.