Some climate activists, researchers, and the pro-nuclear lobby argue that if Germany had decided to reduce coal power consumption before it stopped using nuclear power, it would have prevented CO2 emissions. “From a pure emissions perspective, it was always a questionable idea to shut down German nuclear before the plants have reached the end of their lifetime,” Hanns Koenig, head of commissioned projects at Aurora Energy Research told bloomberg.
The Federal Environment Agency uses the following emission estimates: Onshore wind 10 grams CO2equivalent per kilowatt-hour, solar PV 67g CO2eq /kWh, nuclear 68g CO2eq /kWh, natural gas 430g CO2eq /kWh, lignite more than 1kg CO2eq /kWh.
Pro-nuclear activists Rainer Moormann, who used to be a physical chemist at the Jülich Research Centre, and Anna Veronika Wendland – from the Herder Institute for Historical Research on Eastern Central Europe in Marburg – argued in 2020 that leaving the last six nuclear power stations running would have enabled Germany to shut down all of North Rhine-Westphalia’s lignite plants – by reversing…
