Germany is moving beyond nuclear power, but at what cost?

While the statements you made might coincide with reality, you don't support any of them with an actual credible source. And you ignore the fact that you keep comparing bleeding edge tech to 50 year old tech to prove that the old one shouldn't be researched and improved, a line of argumentation that makes no sense. You insist nuclear should be gimped by not doing any research and then use that as an argument for it not performing well enough now. The tech is old because politicians are weary of promoting research into improving nuclear tech (not talking about "holy grails" like cold fusion) due to the stigma associated with the "nuclear" label and losing their average Joe constituents.

By your own line of argumentation research in renewables should stop because coal and oil are cheaper and scale much better than them. If you can't keep your reasoning consistent it's not much of a reasoning. 20 years ago people like you insisted that electric tech in cars doesn't make sense because it was tried around the 1900s and didn't take off, proof that it should not be researched further.

In the meantime in 2013 the BARD Offshore 1 400MW wind turbine farm cost 3bn Euros and for a long time it cost ratepayers 2m Euros per day by not supplying most of the planned energy. So you see, anything can be disastrous if you don't do it right. If you don't invest in technology don't complain that it's not up to date. You don't blame technology for the blunders of mega-project management unless you're doing it in bad faith or truly have little understanding of the topic.

Let me put your 'swimming pool' into the right context:

Q: In principle, using AECB's regulatory limits, how many ''civilians'' can be overdosed by 100 grams of plutonium?

0.1 micrograms can overdose one civilian

0.1 grams can overdose one million civilians

1 gram can overdose ten million civilians

100 grams can overdose one billion civilians

600 grams can overdose six billion civilians

Q: If there is a serious accident involving 120 grams of plutonium (in the form of MOX), how many civilian overdoses could, in principle, result?

if NONE of the plutonium is safely contained there is a potential for one billion two hundred million civilian overdoses

if 90 percent of it is safely contained there is a potential for one hundred and twenty million civilian overdoses

if 99.9 percent of it is safely contained there is a potential for one hundred and twenty thousand civilian overdoses

if 99.999 percent of it is safely contained there is a potential for one thousand two hundred civilian overdoses

{1} http://www.ccnr.org/max_plute_aecb.html

The World Nuclear Report:

> Renewables Continue to Thrive

> * A record 165 GW of renewables were added to the world’s power grids in 2018, up from 157 GW added the previous year. The nuclear operating capacity increased by 9 GW6 to reach 370 GW (excluding 25 GW in LTO), a new historic maxi- mum, slightly exceeding the previous peak of 368 GW in 2006.

> * Globally, wind power output grew by 29% in 2018, solar by 13%, nuclear by 2.4%. Compared to a decade ago, non-hydro renewables generate over 1,900 TWh more power, exceeding coal and natural gas, while nuclear produces less.

> * Over the past decade, levelized cost estimates for utility-scale solar dropped by 88%, wind by 69%, while nuclear increased by 23%. Renewables now come in below the cost of coal and natural gas.

That's today.

If you want more research into Nuclear (which has research in the range of hundreds of billions since the 50s) then you need to say: where, what for and with what goal.

Currently it's clear that the investing even more money into nuclear won't bring any breakthrough with visible effects in the next 20 years.

The problem here is that you seem to be arguing a point I’m not making. I’m speaking only to the decisions regarding prioritizing decommissioning nuclear over coal. Let’s ignore the future and deal only with what has already happened, because it requires no suppositions. The German public and politicians have decided to prioritize the phase out of nuclear over coal, both before and after the accident in Japan. This is a fact, it’s not up for debate. It’s supported both by public policy positions, public sentiment, and by looking at the percentage of energy coming from each production method. This has negative consequences for climate change.

That’s all that I’m saying here. I’m an overall supporter of the Energiewende, I’d be happy for renewables to replace both coal and nuclear. The issue is as renewables become a bigger share you can shutter coal or you can shutter nuclear capacity that renewables are replacing. Germans chose to prioritize shuttering nuclear, and that’s the wrong choice.

> The world will never become carbon neutral with PV and wind turbines.

That's your assumption. Fact is: currently only renewable has a chance to make an actual impact for the next 30 years.

> that renewables projects can be astonishingly expensive

That was long ago and in the case of German offshore the reason was that the technology was challenging (because of deep and rough water in the North Sea) and needed to be developed and deployed. Today scaling it is a bit easier and more cost effective. Solar (PV) was also expensive in the first years, but it was always clear that mass-production would bring prices down.

> the reason there's no nuclear research has nothing

There is nuclear research.

> you insist that there should be no investment in new nuclear tech because old tech

No, I insist that there is no need to invest in DEPLOYMENT of nuclear, because the current nuclear has been proven to be a dead end.

> insist we should invest in new renewables even if they are more expensive and don't scale as well as fossil

No I insist to invest in renewables, because they are the cheapest and fastest way to REPLACE fossil.

> And scary-nuclear-label aside, nuclear tech always showed a lot of promise, if only people like you didn't shoot it in the foot and then whined that it's limping.

Nuclear has totally shown its own failure: remember Russia? Worst security. Remember Japan? Fully nuclear. One event took out ALL reactors. Remember the US? No expansion of Nuclear despite having all the technology in the last 30 years. Remember France? A single reactor under construction in last 20 years. Late and cost explosion. 70 years and no storage solution. 70 years and the cost building them is increasing. In the US, in France, ... in core nuclear power countries.

> Now imagine what could be achieved if it actually received some solid support

You believe in Santa Claus. Look around. Read the 'Nuclear World Report' and it paints a bleak picture.