The shutdown
April 15, 2023. Germany disconnected its last three reactors — Isar 2, Emsland, Neckarwestheim 2 — on a weekend its coal plants were running near their highest capacity in six years. The phaseout was written into law in 1998 by Schroder’s coalition with the Greens, then accelerated in 2011, when Merkel watched Fukushima and ordered eight reactors shut at once. To its supporters it was the keeping of a thirty-year democratic promise. To its critics it was a country dismantling its lowest-carbon power on purpose. Both have been arguing ever since.
The bill, and the war
The Energiewende — energy turn
— has cost well over 500 billion euros, and German household electricity runs to roughly double the French rate. France kept its nuclear fleet and emits around 56 grams of CO2 per kilowatt-hour; Germany, refilling the gap partly with gas, has hovered nearer 380. Then Russia invaded Ukraine. Nord Stream — the pipeline German chancellors had defended against every warning — was sabotaged in September 2022, and Germany scrambled for LNG at spot prices. The lights stayed on. The bills did not. Whether that proved the phaseout reckless or merely expensive is exactly where the camps divide.
Four ways to read it
The nuclear advocates see France’s grid as proof a clean baseload was thrown away. The green transition disputes less the carbon math than the frame: a coal accident ends, and a reactor’s worst day — in a word that needs no translation in any European language — does not. The sovereignty analysts read the pipeline map as a leash, and note Finland brought a reactor online the same month Germany shut its last. The industrial pragmatists care less about which electrons than what they cost, as German manufacturers eye the exits.
France has six new reactors planned; Flamanville, sixteen years late and far over budget, is the reminder that building is no guarantee either. Whether Germany looks prescient or foolish from 2040 depends on numbers — winters, prices, accidents — that haven’t happened yet.
Germany shut its last reactors in April 2023 and leaned harder on coal and gas the same year. France runs on nuclear at a fraction of the carbon. Whether the phase-out was courage or self-harm depends on whether you count it in carbon, euros, or security.
Perspectives:
- Nuclear advocates
- Green transition
- Sovereignty analysts
- Industrial pragmatists