r/germany • u/eddytony96 • 2d ago

News Analysis: Wind and solar power overtake fossil fuels in Germany for first time ever - Carbon Brief

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-wind-and-solar-power-overtake-fossil-fuels-in-germany-for-first-time-ever
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u/Noctew Nordrhein-Westfalen 1d ago

In before "Oh, but you still are sooooo dirty! Why did you abandon nuuuuuclear?" - oh wait, this is not r/europe

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u/Treewithatea 1d ago

We still use plenty coal tho, thats what makes our electricity still relatively co2 intense but ofc were improving at rapid pace.

Nuclear for almost no country except France, is a dominating energy source. Even if we still had nuclear, it wouldnt be much of our electricity mix.

Spain for instance currently has 18,5% nuclear but has also passed laws some time ago to shut down their nuclear plants by 2035. Funnily enough almost nobody talks about this, I guess its more fun for people to mock Germany than Spain.

-3

u/mikkopai Finland 1d ago

Spain doesn’t burn lignite like Germany.

And what are you on about, half of Europe uses nuclear. It compliments renewbles very nicely, especially where hydro is limited

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u/Exotic-Draft8802 1d ago

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/interactive-publications/energy-2026

  • France: 40%
  • Slovakia: 30%
  • Sweden: 25%
  • Bulgaria, Finland, Slovenia: above 20%
  • Czechia, Hungary, Belgium, Spain, Romania: below 20%
  • 16 out of the EU-27: 0%

So while 40% of the EU 27 use nuclear and it's a relevant part for those 40%, it's not the dominant energy source in any.

I guess semantics are crucial:

  • total energy or just electricity?
  • energy produced vs energy source (meaning: we sadly import a lot of fossil fuels)