What if Germany had invested in nuclear power?

Nuclear Waste: Scale, Risk, and Management

• Debate over whether “giant piles” of nuclear waste are worse than coal waste; some argue nuclear volumes are tiny per person, others note totals (e.g., ~10,000 tons/year for a fully nuclear U.S.) still feel large.
• Disagreement on what counts as “waste”: some say spent fuel only; others stress intermediate‑level and other high‑level waste also need long‑term storage.
• Breeder and fast reactors are cited as able to use “waste” as fuel, but are described as still experimental, slow‑moving, and not solving all waste types.
• Ideas like deep‑sea dumping or launching to space are floated but not examined in depth.

Germany’s Experience and Attitudes

• Past failures like the Asse II leaking waste dump strongly shape German public opposition to nuclear, beyond Chernobyl fears.
• Germany still lacks a permanent repository; official processes may run into the 2070s.
• Some see Germany as capable of safe operations but acknowledge poor waste handling and major infrastructure/megaproject issues.
• Claim that Germany is “outsourcing” nuclear to neighbors is contested; export/import balance is brought up to argue Germany is mostly a net exporter.

Nuclear vs Renewables: Costs, Systems, and Security

• One side: nuclear is dense, reliable baseload, safer than coal, and necessary until better storage exists; shutting it down while burning coal is framed as irrational.
• Other side: renewables are now cheaper, nuclear is “20th‑century tech,” and new plants are too costly and slow; Germany’s early subsidies helped push solar/wind down the cost curve globally.
• Thread cites Lazard analysis to argue that firming intermittent renewables can double or triple their effective cost in some grids; others stress LCOE for wind/solar is already very low.
• Concerns about Chinese fossil‑powered solar manufacturing vs. claims that energy payback for panels is short and fossil use will decline.
• National‑security angle: nuclear fuel cycle is partly dependent on Russian and Chinese conversion/enrichment capacity.

Politics and Policy Design

• Debate over whether coal/gas support is “center‑right,” vs. nuclear skepticism as historically left‑wing.
• Some argue both nuclear and renewables paths in Europe (France vs Germany) were badly implemented, not intrinsically flawed.
• Energiewende’s long‑term feed‑in tariffs are seen as both costly and instrumental in scaling global renewables; later cuts hurt Germany’s own solar industry.

Alternative Structural Ideas

• One commenter proposes large‑scale de‑urbanization and energy‑efficient single‑family homes as a major demand‑reduction strategy; others doubt its feasibility and data support.
• Dutch and Russian gas stories are used to illustrate how energy policy bets (on future nuclear or on fossil export windows) can go wrong.