It's very popular to criticize the Energiewende as a failure because it apparently failed to reduce CO2 emmissions of the whole country. And of course, it's true that Germany could have had greater reductions if nuclear was kept alive instead of coal. But the Energiewende actually
changed Germany. Suddenly everywhere you go you have solar panel farms and many houses have them on their roofs and there are wind turbines. It was a cool time to live in germany to see these projects realized everywhere. They were done in an era where the price of renewables was very high compared to other technologies. The big contribution that Germany has done to the world with the Energiewende is:
* demonstrating that an industrialized nation actually can start a gradual transition towards renewables and most importantly
* by buying renewables at high prices, helping the manufacturers to get the price of renewables down. I think it's partially thanks to Germany that renewables have become the cheapest form of elecricity generation this fast, with impact observable around the globe!
From that second point alone I think the Energiewende should be considered a success. Could it have been better? Sure. Is it perfect? No. Do I like the high energy prices now? No. But I'm definitely glad we had it.
Also consider that we here Germany in fact do have a nuclear catastrophy right below our feet in the form of Asse 2.
* demonstrating that an industrialized nation actually can start a gradual transition towards renewables and most importantly
* by buying renewables at high prices, helping the manufacturers to get the price of renewables down. I think it's partially thanks to Germany that renewables have become the cheapest form of elecricity generation this fast, with impact observable around the globe!
From that second point alone I think the Energiewende should be considered a success. Could it have been better? Sure. Is it perfect? No. Do I like the high energy prices now? No. But I'm definitely glad we had it.
Also consider that we here Germany in fact do have a nuclear catastrophy right below our feet in the form of Asse 2.