“P.S. We also don’t eat cats and dogs,” Berlin’s foreign ministry taunts Republican presidential candidate.
Germany’s foreign ministry hit back Wednesday at former U.S. President Donald Trump after he criticized the country’s energy policy at the presidential debate against Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump slammed Germany in his closing remarks, claiming Berlin regretted its decision to transition to renewable energy.
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But the German foreign ministry took umbrage at that, blasting Trump in an unusually blunt statement on social media.
“Like it or not: Germany’s energy system is fully operational, with more than 50 percent renewables,” the ministry wrote. “And we are shutting down — not building — coal and nuclear plants. Coal will be off the grid by 2038 at the latest.”
The costs of safely decommissioning and dismantling nuclear power plants are immense and are borne by taxpayers. In addition, there are high insurance premiums for operators. Renewable energies, on the other hand, are becoming increasingly affordable and make us less dependent on fossil fuels and their price fluctuations.
The future belongs to renewable energies. With them, we can ensure a safe, clean, and sustainable energy supply for generations to come. Nuclear power is a thing of the past.
Would you like me to combine these options into a single statement, or perhaps focus on a specific aspect of the arguments? For example, we could emphasize the economic benefits of renewable energy, or the environmental impact of nuclear power.
Most of the benefits and drawbacks you mention only became a reality after a decade of heavy focus and investment on renewables, with no similar focus on nuclear. It could be argued that if the same investment and focused had been applied to it, then none of those arguments would be true. In fact, back then those were the same arguments used against renewables.
In other words, the arguments of “but money, and look at the economy” are absolute shit, and they are the reason we spent so long on oil. The facts it’s now used in favor of renewables and to shut down discussion of other alternatives is quite ironic.
Edit: To add, as I’ve mentioned somewhere else:
“Low-emissions sources are expected to account for almost half of the world’s electricity generation by 2026.”
That’s half, by 2026, and they are accounting for nuclear. That means the other 50% will still be fossil fuels. Meanwhile, the planet is getting warmer, some places are going underwater, and we are getting extreme weather events more and more frequently. “But-but, the economy!”