On Saturday, April 15, Germany shuts down its last three #nuclear power plants. After 50 years of environmental activism, the No Nukes movement is celabrating. I regret this decision by the current government but I don't freak out over it.

For one, three nuclear power plants have no impact on electricity prices or reliability of supply. Fossil fuels step in, and whoever is in favour of climate activism but opposes nuclear needs to figure out for himself how to reconcile both.

The remaining six nuclear power plants (those taken from the grid at the end of 2021 and those being cut off tomorrow) would have produced ≈ 60 TWh/a, enough to kick natural gas from the merit order of the electricity exchanges thus cutting prices for consumers in half. But three plants won't.

The main reason why German Greens and prominent environmental groups pushed for the end of nuclear was not concerns about operational safety or nuclear waste; nor some alleged reactionary anti-tech sentiment. The major difference between Pro Nukes and No Nukes lies in how both assess the concept of baseload. Pro Nukes embrace baseload, No Nukes a modular and lateral feeding-in of electricity. But both concepts are mutually exclusive as they demand radically different power supply grids.

I don't think the modular approach will work. But this decision has been reached democratically, and living in a democratic society is of higher value than the vigilantism of eco-militants or far-right reactionaries.