In 2021, the Grohnde nuclear power plant in Lower Saxony on the Weser River was shut down. Now, immediately next to it, the Emmerthal energy cluster is growing with three very large battery storage systems, ground-mounted photovoltaic systems, and a new substation for several 380-kilovolt high-voltage lines.
True, because unlike the brown coal plants, who could just pump CO2 and particulate into the air without problem, the nuclear plants actually had to pay for the full lifecycle. Fossil plants don’t have to. Hell, they windmills don’t have to pay for decommissioning in advance, despite the low cost of that.
That’s rather unfair. It’s like saying the had to throw away my car because the tires were worn out. They could have been overhauled and stayed in use.
Somewhat in agreement with the first point, but not at all with the second. Most of these nuclear power plants are half a century old and had been overhauled already to the very limit of what was economically feasible. Continued operation would have meant building new reactor blocks next to them and decomissioning the existing ones.
Half a century is barely getting on in nuclear power terms… Were German plants especially poorly built?
Do Germans actually care about reactor safty instead of burying their head in the sand like other nations with super old nuclear power plants like to do?