Slashdot Mirror
Germany Is Burning Too Much Coal (bloomberg.com)
Several readers share a report: Germany is widely seen as a world leader in the fight against climate change. Thanks to its investments in renewable power, wind and solar energy provide a third of its electricity, more than double the U.S. share. Germany's goal to lower carbon-dioxide emissions 40 percent by 2020 is significantly more ambitious than that of Europe as a whole or the U.S. After the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, Chancellor Angela Merkel vowed even greater determination. "We can't wait for the last man on Earth to be convinced by the scientific evidence for climate change," she explained. But there's another, troubling side to the German story: The country still gets 40 percent of its energy from coal, a bigger share than most other European countries. And much of it is lignite, the dirtiest kind of coal. As a result, Germany is set to fall well short of its 2020 goal. This dependence on coal is partly a side effect of Germany's abandonment of emissions-free nuclear power and partly foot-dragging on the part of a government wary of alienating voters in German coal country. During the summer election campaign, Merkel largely avoided the subject.
Unfortunately a lot of nuclear FUD is bankrolled by the coal industry pretending to be grass roots. This has been a big issue in the USA also.
Nuclear energy is just too dangerous. Japan and Russia have no man's lands due to that.
If you want to see this in obvious detail, look at deaths per terawatt generated. Nuclear is in its own category here.
If Merkel wanted to maintain quality of life for germans she wouldn't have let the country be overrun by migrants either, so we can safely rule that out as any kind of motivation for her actions.