By P Gosselin
Professor Fritz Vahrenholt revisits Germany’s transition to green energies (Energiewende), calling the country’s exit from nuclear power a huge mistake, one that even the current government now acknowledges.
Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt (photo) looks at the high costs of green energy subsidies in Germany. In 2025, wind and solar operators received approximately €16.5 billion in government subsidies from the Climate and Transformation Fund. And due to fixed feed-in tariffs, investors end up benefitting twice: during oversupply (electricity prices near zero), the state pays the difference; during scarcity (high prices up to 40 ct/kWh), they pocket extra profits.
Vahrenholt calls this redistribution “socially unjust”, as it is financed by tenants and motorists (via CO2 pricing) while benefiting wealthy investors.
And despite the recent global turmoil (the closure of the Strait of Hormuz), the German federal government is still stubbornly sticking to its ban of both nuclear energy and domestic shale gas production. Ther country is also moving forward with the coal phase-out.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz, beholden to his SPD leftist coalition partners, refuses to initiate any real course change. Proposals by Economy Minister Katherina Reiche to reform the system are being rejected by the SPD and the Greens as an attack on the “success model of the energy transition.” The reality, however, is that it’s been a complete debacle.
Vahreholt advocates for a return to nuclear energy (using subsidy billions to build new plants), the use of domestic shale gas, and the continued operation of coal-fired power plants. The move away from nuclear power under Merkel (2011) is described as a historic blunder that has cost around €500 billion to date and led to the current rapid deindustrialization.
Germany is in deep trouble.
The move away from nuclear power under Merkel (2011) is described as a historic blunder that has cost around €500 billion to date and led to the current rapid deindustrialization.
Her decision to phase out nuclear plants was made before Fukushima, and that disaster, at the time, only seemed to support her move. Never mind that Germany doesn’t sit on the Ring of Fire, that barring freak events, it’s incredibly safe (think of all the nuclear-powered vessels in the US Navy), and that neighboring France has used nuclear power for decades, and without incident. Her mistake was rushing through Energiewende without having reliable alternative sources of energy available.
Merkel was Putin’s puppet. Abandon coal and nuclear power for Russian gas. Slash the defense budget. Permit unlimited immigration. If she were a Russian asset, what would she have done differently?
Putin’s puppet? So it seems, but she was born and raised in East Germany and was compelled to become German when the Soviet Union collapsed. Lies and ignorance ran strong in her.
My thoughts exactly
Not that simple. It often was a team play that resulted in win-win for the both of them. Guess who the losers were?.
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If a businessman makes a mistake,
he suffers the consequences.
If a bureaucrat makes a mistake,
you suffer the consequences.
Ayn Rand
I think ” Too big to fail ” and golden Parachutes have shown that you suffer the consequences when the 0.1% businessmen make mistakes.
An opinion expressed as an opinion. Very good. Upvoted.
Well… If they are ”too big [to be let allowed] to fail, they are de facto state enterprises. And all the Bagehotian (maturity transformation) banks are state banks.
The most common result of the Randianism infected with word thinking is same old failure — concluding that MiniTru is one thing, but Truth, Inc (R) can only be something completely different, for the magic of names ensures this. See also: the sad clownade of unofficially official press and unofficially officialcensors passing the buck to pet “independent” Truth Checkers (will they one day aspire to Truth Chess?).
“TOO BIG TO FAIL” is a government creation to protect failed businesses from the impacts of their stupidity. Scratch the surface a bit and you will find a massive money laundering operation putting huge amounts of cash into the pockets of politicians. All this money is from wasting our taxes!
Not sure why there are downvotes. There are many examples of companies where leadership made errors, workers lost jobs, and the leaders were given huge severance to get rid of them.
Solyndra comes to mind.
(But there politics also enters in. The bosses were big Dem and Obama donors.)
Too big to fail is a political decision.
“Too big to fail.” Like for example, Sears, Roebuck and Company, once the world’s largest retailer and a member of the Dow Thirty, now out of business. Or the Eastman Kodak Corporation, the world’s largest manufacturer of photographic equipment and another member of the Dow, now just a small chemical company. What about the Continental Bank, the fifth largest bank in America, which failed and doesn’t even exist anymore after making too many risky oil investments. What about the Bell & Howel Corporation? At one time their movie projectors were in almost every movie theater, and they were a big player in office copying equipment, and the President of Bell & Howel even became a U.S. Senator, but they are gone now. How about all the car companies like the American Motors Corporation? Companies come and go.
His 8 billion nuclear plants only exist in fairy tales. Hinkley point C is currently at 50 billion (not finished), Flamanville 24 billion.
And most reactors are retired at around 30-40 years. The extensions only exist because no one will build new ones to replace them.
Nuclear expert Mycle Schneider on the COP28 pledge to triple nuclear energy production: ‘Trumpism enters energy policy’
Due to overregulation and lawfare, not actual costs.
Strip mandates and subsidies from wind and solar and see how fast nobody builds those.
Pakistan is a recent example of market driven PV adoption.
Nuclear power plants build and insured in the free market: 0
Pakistan? That Islamic aid dependent basket case?
Pakistan emergency fund
https://www.sktwelfare.org/pakistanfloods/?msclkid=2d9a754c16d81ca0a67f1cf7ce6da4ab
They – as our young girls have found are…
gangs of mostly Pakistani men had groomed, trafficked and raped young white girls
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/child-rape-scandal-dominating-uk-politics-after-musk-criticism-2025-01-06/
The left Islamic alliance will end in tears.
“Free market?” Where is your /sarc tag?
Solar in Pakistan is popular because it enables people to get electricity for a few hours per day, which is much better than what they used to get – zero. You would not be writing comments to this web site at 3:57 am if you depended on such a source.
Market driven?
This more correctly is market distortion driven. “Renewables” only exist because of massive “green” subsidies created by politicians. Nuclear plants are extraordinarily expensive because of massive disincentives imposed by politicians. Let’s remove the political market distortions and see what happens.
Yup. But these are 2 and 3 wheel EV vehicles, and none capable of long distance transport.
They do not have the charging infrastructure as the plan is to install 3,000 charging stations by 2030 as well as 30% of new vehicle sales by, again, 2030.
This is a government mandate, not free market.
ICE vehicles are being taxed to pay for it.
The “massive transition” has all of 80,000 EVs today.
“Despite the momentum, key challenges include high upfront costs for consumers, limited charging infrastructure outside major cities, and an unstable power grid.”
This is the result of substantial subsidies. Market driven? Hahaha.
“As of 2025, Pakistan has six operable reactors producing a record high of 21.7 TWh in 2024.”
Two power plants, six reacctors.
Chinese built. Free market? hahaha
I agree but please keep in mind that with MyLosernameRetarded (and a few others) you can’t have a rational discussion with irrational people. And someone who references Pakistan a a guiding economic light and Spain, where they just had a nationwide blackout, as a standard-bearer for renewable energy is definitely irrational.
I think “stupid” describes them better than irrational. Or, maybe, stupidly irrational.
That report is from 2023.
Trump was not President in 2023.
Funny how they blame someone who was in no position to do anything addressing the issue.
Who said Schneider is an expert on anything? Other that creating pure BS.
The TVA Sequoyah Nuclear Plant began construction on May 27, 1970, and its first unit started commercial operation on July 1, 1981, making it approximately 55 years old as of 2026. The second unit began operation on June 1, 1982, making it about 54 years old.
Extensions exist because water cooled reactors are extremely durable and they can continue to operate for twice as long if need be. Some in the US are now licensed to operate for up to 80 years. Some are closed in recent times for two reasons: 1) Ignorant politicians and citizens who assure themselves that they know better but in truth, know practically nothing and 2) Rules for operating electric power distribution systems (grids) requiring wind and solar electricity to be purchased before any other source including nuclear without considerng that wind and solar always require backup. This reduces the amount a nuclear plant (or any fossil plant as well) can operate which in turn reduces the income to the owners to the point that the plants become more expensive to run than not. This latter reason is why some nuclear and fossil plants are now subsidized because the grid cannot do without them as they are essential to fill in the holes created by erratic wind and solar sources and for frequency and voltage stability which wind and solar cannot supply. These are the Rube Goldberg electricity grids now emerging throughout the western world, all brought to you by ignorance.
I live near “Pickering” Nuclear. Pickering A went on line in 1971, which according to my limited math skills is somewhat more than 30 years ago. I worked in Pickering B while it was under construction as an engineering coop in 1981. It is also still thriving. Bruce nuclear will be 50 next year. No plans to be closed. You’re wrong almost as much as Paul Erlich.
I keep asking you every time you mention Mycle Schneider if you have ever met him? You never reply. Well I have met him and he has been rabidly anti nuclear power for decades so you need to treat his remarks with a pinch of salt!
Germany *is* in deep trouble.
Even more so because German leaders refuse to accept the situation their nation is in, and continue down the Road to Ruin. German leaders are living in a False Reality which causes them to make very bad decisions.
Whose economy is going down first over Net Zero? Germany or the UK?
Somebody has to be the first crash-test dummy.
Like I said, Leftists are mentally ill to one degree or another. Hanging on to Net Zero, when all the evidence is against you, is a good example of this.
Spain has shown that the move to renewables shields the economy from unreliable fossil fuels and their price swings. The US may have their own oil production, they still pay international prices.
Spain moved to renewables and killed 11 people – so far…
First victims of Iberian blackout confirmed in Spain as fallout rumbles on. – euronews
No doubt, you believe their deaths were for the greater good?
Spain has shown us the way. Like when they ran diesel generators at night to keep earning solar subsidies. Why let a little thing like sunset get in the way of one’s profits?
Funny how greedy capitalists are evil, except when they aren’t.
Northern Ireland tired to top them with a scheme that subsidised renewable wood burning that offered more than the cost of the wood. The resulting Cash for Ash scandal cost half a billion pounds as farmers heated up barns with open doors.
That is not correct The WTI-Brent spread is the greatest it’s been for many decades, and growing. Furthermore there is talk of introducing export tariffs on US oil to discourage foreign buyers to protect domestic US buyers from international prices.
Wrong again. Because Canada is too stupid to build pipelines to the coasts, it sells oil to the US at a reduced rate. And then compounds the stupidity by buying mideast oil at world rates for the east because no Canadian oil can get to the east coast, other than the oil going through Michigan to Ontario which is then shipped by rail.
The stupidity of Justin Trudeau cannot be understated.
Not using domestic sources of energy such as UK’s North Sea oil, or Germany’s nuclear power and oil shale is just another way the West is committing suicide. Thanatos is the god of the West except for Trump and the USA.
Thanatos– my new word for the day. The only time I’ve seen that word is on a German based NDE YouTube channel- a very good one too- with excellent translation. I’ve watched that channel for a few years but didn’t know what that word meant and was too lazy to look it up.
Handle in Eile, bereue in Muße
As they say.
Translation: “Act in haste, regret in leisure”
repent at leisure…
See, it was but a honest mistake. They are just kind of blundered there. By accident. And their neighbour. And their other neighbour. Lost 500 Billion Euro. It happens every day! And the rest of it, like fad for giant spinning things, was much like this too.
The governments are just one big kindergarten!
Kindergarten and governments in equality. Fabulous!
They COULD have listened to the skeptics but nah, don’t pay attention to those deniers.
High end car update
Rolls-Royce has become the latest carmaker to scrap plans to ditch petrol vehicles, with the British carmaker saying many customers prefer the feel of a V12 engine over electric motors.
“We recognise some clients would rather have a V12 engine. The V12 is part of our history,”
It is the latest car manufacturer to abandon or water down EV targets, following such as Bentley, Aston Martin and Ferrari. – DS
Another blow to the Miliband scheme.
Porsche has just announced almost 4000 job cuts and is walking back on its EV strategy. It has delayed several planned EVs in favour of adding “more profitable” ICE vehicles. Meanwhile its parent company Volkswagen is to shed 50,000 jobs by 2030 because the EV strategy is going so well.
Well wot you need in a crisis is more of the Great Feminisation and wokeness-
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/other/ideas-have-consequences-one-nation-s-rise-is-due-to-a-failure-of-the-political-class/ar-AA1YYj1W
Commonly known in the leftist patriarchy circles as- When you’re up manure creek in a barbed wire canoe without a means of propulsion stick a woman in charge.
I suggest no place on this planet has gone further with Great Feminisation and wokeness than Wokeachusetts- with it’s lesbian governor. Almost all her agencies are “led” by women and most of the next tier down too. Just a few days ago she gave a speech about high energy costs and said we just need MORE green energy to solve the problem. I refer to the state as a feminocracy.
Mr. Merz has said two very different things, that ending nuclear was a mistake and that this decision is irreversible. It seems Mr. Merz does not believe in fixing mistakes?
It took them only 15 years to acknowledge a mistake.
Admitting the mistake is not the same as taking responsibility for the consequences. If they are serious they would start immediately implementing a nuclear energy recovery program.
Restoring Germany’s nuclear industry to the condition it was in at the end of the 1990’s will take three decades minimum, and at a capital cost which might be four to six times what the shuttered nuclear plants originally cost.
This isn’t likely to happen. Germany’s larger industrial base, upon which a revived German nuclear industrial base must rest, has been similarly attacked and is now smaller in comparison to what it was at the end of the 1990’s.
Wind and solar are a losing proposition no matter how you look at it. Corrupt government is the only thing keeping it going.
Reviewing the last 30 years, the term “Energy Expert” is irrefutably an oxymoron.