I thought I'd continue my theme of German environmental stories. Today a newspaper article caught my eye. Germany's government shut down half its nuclear power plants two years ago, after Japan's earthquake/nuclear accident. And in those two years, CO2 emissions have gone up both years. This comes in spite of the fact that Germany - where the Green party is a major political force - has generally made progress on greenhouse gasses.
See, it turns out that eliminating nuclear power doesn't cause the spontaneous creation of windmills and solar panels, nor does it cause people to suddenly use less power. Instead, it forces utilities to replace that power supply with the quickest cheapest thing available. That's coal, and it produces more CO2 than any other major power source.
For the last freaking time, environmentalists, you've got to get over your fear of nuclear power. Yes, I know, it's expensive and technological, and - worst of all to the activist heart - not the perfect solution. But it's the only workable, non-disasterous solution we can get now.
And remember, it's "right now" that's the important point here. To illustrate, the German Green party's energy plan would move to 100% renewable energy by 2040. Yes, in the teeth of environmental catastrophe, they're going to take decades to implement the ideal solution, all the while pumping out CO2 from coal plants, apparently. Is that really any better than the suburbanite who's hanging on to his SUV right up until the day they can make the recharge-in-a-minute, thousand-mile-range electric model that will allow him to keep his lifestyle without any compromise?
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