For all those who are following this topic on the news: What is your opinion on opening up /re-opening of coal mines/ excavation sites?

I'll start with my humble opinion: I fully sympthatize with the activitst, it is plain wrong to re-open coal excavation sites justified by the self-inflicted energy crisis. I say self-inflicted as it is the EU energy politcs (driven by germany) which led to the idiotic decision of shutting down and stopping the buuld of new nuclear plants in the absence of a viable alternative. Imported fossiles from Ru are neither politcally, not ecologically a viable alternative to nuclear enegergy and as we see by now, despite decades of blind "investment" into "renewable" energy, these are far, far away from being an alternative to nuclear energy, at best renewables are local supplements.

Agree. Total own-goal by the EU/Germany.

I have no idea what the figures are for Germany without this extra coal. Switzerland announced that does not expect to have electricity shortages this winter…

Especially interesting as die Grünen were part of group that negotiated the deal.

It has nothing to do with the EU or Germany on a federal level. Germany is a confederation like Switzerland... and just like Switzerland are a lot of political decisions a matter of the canton... or in German Bundesland. We got plenty of open pit coal mines in Eastern Germany that are not depleted. However, thats a different canton and they are owned by a different energy company. So the north western German politicians with the local energy company RWE have their own thing going on and it has little to do with global politics - RWE owned the rights for 5 or 6 new coal mines in the traditional coal area along the rhine river. Given the world politics, pressure from the public and the fact that the green party is not just in power on a national level, but also in said province... was there zero chance for them to destroy villages that are still "in use" today and relocate families for a new mine. So the company negotiated with the government for a compromise: Instead of 6 new mines would there only be one... the one in Lützerath, because the village was already emptied years ago. In return would the company receive less compensation than it normally would for not exploiting the already approved and owned land.

I have a lot of sympathy for the protesters motives. However: That compromise is democratically legitimized. The politicians who negotiated it are from the environmentalist green party. And most importantly: the protests turned violent yesterday. I find it more than interesting to see how two events - the new years eve in Berlin and the protests in Lützerath yesterday are presented in the news. In both cases did young people throw rocks and fireworks at the police. In Lützerath did they go one step further and actually threw molotovs. However, the people in Berlin are labelled anything from "criminal" to "terrorists" while the ones in Lützerath are apparently "activists"...

Two things: (1) The coal revival, uh accelerated phase-out or whatever the government calls it, is a disaster economically and environmentally. (2) Any protest in Lützerath that turns violent and/or endangers police or operations needs to be ended by police.

Well it is a federal matter in that instead of the Atomausstieg, they could have decided for a "Kohle-Ausstieg" or even "Fossil-Ausstieg" on a federal level, at least for energy production.

Wasnt that de-accelerated phase-out of coal?

If I recall correctly, the initial ambition was to phase out coal by 2038. Then this was moved to 2030, but allows that until then more coal can be produced. Not sure though, I have somewhat lost track of the stumbling energy policy there.

Any smart government would maximize solar and wind (they don't), support energy efficiency (they do somewhat), plan for 50% nuclear (of course they don't) and invest in CCS instead of hydrogen pipe dreams.

Thanks for the clarification. OF course compared to that 2038 or 2030, the nuclear phase-out in germany was at supersonic speed.

Not so sure (depends on location), Yes and Hell yes

I believe, but am likely mistaken, that Switzerland voted to ban building more nuclear power plants and to phase out current nuclear power plants.

Is this the case? And if so, is this position being revised given all the fun we've seen lately?

It definately should be. It was a stupid decision to begin with, driven by unfounded fear, pseudo-green propaganda without any viable alternative.

As an analogy: would you completely ban any cars, even most modern ones, just because a Moskvitch desigend 70 years ago, when psuhed over its operational limits by a maniac resulted in a deadly accident? Or would you rather impose safety standards on modern cars?

Sure, but in that case would the federation have to pay RWE for not exploiting the mines... so that would be an expensive decision The nuclear stop costs around 2.3 billion Euro in payments to the energy companies to compensate them for the electricity they were not allowed to produce anymore. The coal fields would be a lot more I believe.

Why are German politicians such idiots?

Democracy. Just think of an average guy. Half the voters are more stupid than that.

How about if you consider the environmental and health impact of coal? Offseting CO2 also costs money.

I find it quite ironic, tragic, that while Fuskushima was the trigger of nuclear phase out in germany and Switzerland, Japan actually approved seriously ramping up nuclear power, albeit under stricter safety requirements.

Now the discussion about nuclear power plants has naturally also returned in Switzerland. The people had decided in 2017 to ban new nuclear power plants. Only the SVP continued to dream of new nuclear power plants.

Now since August, signatures have been collected for an initiative to lift the ban on nuclear power plants. Not only right-wing politicians, but also many renowned experts and parliamentarians support the demand.

Switzerland's big dilemma: With its official strategy, it will become massively dependent on foreign countries. As soon as the existing nuclear power plants are shut down for age reasons in 15 years, the country will have to procure up to 40 percent of the net electricity it needs abroad in the winter months according to federal government's scenarios. That’s 3 x times as much as today.

I currently tend towards Finlands approach that is convinced that nuclear power is a means to stop climate change. This opinion is shared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the EU and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

And in Finland, nuclear power even has the support of the Green Party.

Hacked democracy - hacked by massive misinformation of the greater public.

I disagree. The green party is winning every time more seats for the last 20 years or so. By now are the in the government on all relevant levels and in the key positions for this very topic. Turns out that environmentalism is easier to demand when you are an opposition party than to actually implement... However, the deal the green minister made with RWE should be celebrated as a pretty far reaching achievement given all the lobbies and forces at play. But somehow do some parts of their movement rather continue to play opposition instead of actually constructively drive change. There is a whole lot to be done to get more renewables, from laws about the construction of wind power, over topics of the grid to charging stations of EVs. But that takes more than gluing yourself to a road. Realpolitik is apparently less exciting than protesting.

Of course this is the culmination of a number of terrible energy policy decisions at Federal and EU level.

Agreeing to close all nuclear reactors after Fukushima was a completely disproportionate response, although we made the same mistake in Switzerland.
Agreeing to Nordstream 2 and a general dependence on Russian gas despite several warnings from US, UK and Eastern European states.
Pushing headlong with net zero energy policy with inadequate technology and nothing but windmills to bridge the gap.
Unwillingness to embrace fracking.

All this lead to one of my faviourite how it started, how it's going moments from 2022.

Germany pledges funds to help South Africa ditch coal

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-pledge...oal/a-59699018

Germany buying a lot more coal from South Africa as Russian ban takes effect

https://www.capetalk.co.za/articles/...es-full-effect

Regardless, re-opening coal mines now is senseless imo, better solutions need to be found. Just thank God that outside Scandinavia the winter in Europe so far has been incredibly mild!

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I disagree with your disagreement. It is exactly due to the hacked democracy (by misinformation) that the green party is elected. it is a pseudo-green party not truly green. Same goes fro greenpeace who often opposes nuclear power.

It seems to me that nuclear power should be one thing those who are most concerned about Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change and those skeptical of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change should be able to agree upon.

It's extremely safe, clean, effective, and the technologies for dealing with the waste are advanced and sane (not like the pictures of 55 gallon drums leaking glowing liquid).

It's the one thing that drives me nuts about this whole thing regardless of one's position on CO2-driven climate change - cleaner air, water, and soil is a win for everybody, and nuclear power would provide that.