Why should they benefit if their share is rising because the total sum is shrinking? They won't gain anything by that because the total amount of energy produced from coal will not change. Besides this the total amount will probably shrink by less than 10%. That will theoretically up the amount of coal (relatively) to maybe 47% - still less than most other countries and especially all those that are yelling so loud now.

So yes, I'll stick to my "think, then post"-attitude.

Are just pulling this out of thin air or why are people spreading complete crap here? Just because Germany has such machinery it doesn't mean most of the electricity is from coal.

Here that's last year's energy mix in Germany: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2F7%2F74%2FStrommix-D-2010.svg

Yes, that's 43% coal in total, but not the majority. It's a huge share, too huge if you ask me. But it won't increase significantly next years. The coal plants that are planned to be build until 2022 are mostly replacements for the old, aging and really dirty plants that are currently running. They were planned to be build either way, no matter if we shut down the nuclear power plants or not. So that share won't be affected.

What will be affected is the 22% nuclear energy share (it will drop to 0 by 2022) and the renewable energy share (currently around 17% if I calculated right) which is supposed to exceed 30% by 2022. Calculate in the saving by not exporting as much electricity and you'll see that there is no need to produce more electricity from coal.

Now put that into perspective with China (78% coal, 2% renewable energy) and the US (50% coal, 9% renewable energy) and then you'll see that you better think twice before telling anyone how to produce electricity.

You can design whatever you like. At some point in time you'll have waste that is not usable anymore. And that has to be contained for quite a bit of time until it's safe again. There is no way to avoid that and that's also true for all the second hand waste, caused by the radiated reactor parts itself.

Additionally why would you willingly produce electricity in an extremely costly way that has the potential for huge hazards when there are cheaper and safer ways to produce electricity available?

repeating this nonsens doesn't make it any more true. It won't happen much more than in the past. Germany is currently producing a lot more energy than it needs. All we need to do in the future is to stop electricity exports and upping the renewable energy production a bit further - and that's already work in progress.

What makes you think that the chances are so bad? There are more countries without nuclear power in the world than those with. Why wouldn't Germany be able to do the same?
Additionally we are far ahead in renewable energy already and there are big plans to extend that strategy massively. So chances to succeed are in fact much bigger than the chances to fail.

Honestly I fail to see how this exit could fail at all.

We already got fucked and still are getting screwed: by the nuclear power industry that got rich by getting tons of subsidiaries from the government to develop, build and run the power plants and by the follow-up costs that will be around for the next few thousand years.

But at least we won't add more mess to this disaster in the future.

Coal power is definitely not clean, but neither is nuclear power. And there is currently no way to produce electricity more costly then in a nuclear power plant. It's nice to think that it barely costs a few cent per kWh - but that's just not true because it leaves out all the follow-up costs that are simply omitted.

Please don't believe the propaganda the nuclear energy lobby is throwing on everyone. It's a very lucrative way to produce electricity - for the companies because the win is privatized while pretty much all costs are socialized. That's worse than communism and I'm really astonished that you guys are backing that kind of bullshit propaganda.

You obviously don't know anything about Germany, its people and the influence politicians have here.
Since 1986 there is an ever growing movement against nuclear power that resulted in a exit law passed 2005 by the then ruling red-green government. The vast majority backed this move. In 2010 the then ruling black-yellow government passed an exit from the exit law which was against the will of the majority of the people but obviously induced by the 4 big electricity companies that run nuclear power plants in Germany. This eventually resulted those parties that made this decision to lose the election in one of Germany's biggest state in a historic loss. For 60 years the blacks were reigning in Baden Württemberg, either alone or together with the yellow dudes. The yellow dudes aren't even part of the parliament there anymore and Baden Württemberg has a green mp now, the first in Germany ever.

Unless they want to pave the way for more green governed states it's really safe to assume that no one will even dare to change this law anymore. If anything then the exit will be sped up.

Despite massive fear mongering by the electricity lobby (higher prices, power outages) approximately 80% of Germany's population are backing the exit decision.

Some more information to help you understand the context: Whenever there are any transportations of nuclear waste through Germany there is a pretty big demonstration held, usually all along the track the waste takes and back by pretty much all kind of people, from pensioners to children, from hippies to professors ... there is pretty much everyone involved, sometimes delaying those transports for days. Quite remarkable for a country that you can pass in any direction in half a day.

The current government tried really hard to change the perception on nuclear power but it didn't help any, quite the opposite and I really doubt that they would risk this again because the chances that they will win the next election are almost non-existant already.

Well, still better then a neglected nuclear power plant, isn't it?

That link has been spread elsewhere already and it's just misleading. Just because Germany is importing electricity for 1 month doesn't make it a net importer. There always have been months when Germany was importing more than it exported. But those statistics are only reasonable when viewed long term, over years.

So your link is irrelevant, sorry!

10-20 km is what authorities say. The real contamination could very well be much bigger than that. And even 10-20 km is a huge area going to waste, not even counting the gigantic costs to clean up that mess.

And you should get your facts updated. A few workers got killed in Japan so far, many more will suffer from long term radiation issues and the death toll in the Ukraine is above 4 digits.

Many countries are rethinking their strategies for the future an more will follow. Nuclear power is not renewable! No matter how much effort you put into recycling it will be not endless and it would be stupid to switch from on limited resource to the next if an endless resource is available almost for free.

We were overpaying for the last 40 years already due to the massive costs caused by nuclear power plants and we will do that for the next few thousands years until all the nuclear garbage is finally safe again. Germany has a total energy consumption of a little less than 4000 billion kWh. Less than 20% of it is electricity, so less than 1000 billion kWh per year. A kWh at the spot market costs around 0,06€/kWh. That's 60 billion €/year if I'm not mistaken. Germany produced a mere 33% of its electricity from nuclear power. 25% of electricity got exporter (net). So Germany needs to replace less than 10% of its electricity production until 2022. I'm pretty sure that we can do that.

We do think long term - that's why we do NOT use Thorium or the like. It's still limited ressources with potential to cause huge problems. Focusing on renewable energy is the only reasonable way to go.

Germany is partly prospering due to its strength in green energy and this change will just increase that. You will see many countries buying technology from Germany in the future to get their racing energy costs under control within the next 10-20 years because oil&gas prices will skyrocket somewhen soon.

It doesn't matter if an area the size of Switzerland or "just" the size of Switzerland's capital will be polluted - either would be disastrous for a country as small as Germany.

German nuclear power plants are of a different design - but so are Japan's. It still didn't help them and there is a huge area polluted in Japan, wether you like it or not. It will costs Japan between 70 and 250 billion Dollars to clean up the mess, depending on how you calculate.

It's politics following the people's will for a change. I have to applaud that and I'm glad about it.

There have been plenty of serious incidents and thousands of direct and indirect deaths and many more injuries or negative effects. Huge areas are uninhabitable for many years because of this and the costs are enormous. No country has a working and safe way to contain the remains for the necessary time or an idea how to finance that.

Nuclear power is expensive, dangerous and by no means clean. It's limited and even coal plants can be run with less pollution if investing the same amount of money.

Please stop speaking out of your asses if you have no clue how Germany produces energy.