Balcony solar panels can save 30% on a typical household’s electricity bill and, with vertical surface area in cities larger than roof space, the appeal is clear
The relentless march of sustainable cosplay continues. A million Germans clinging to plasticky solar trinkets like rosary beads against energy insecurity—how very on-brand for a nation that dismantled nuclear plants to cozy up with Putin’s pipelines. Nothing screams “green revolution” like propping up coal while bureaucrats hyperventilate over balcony wattage permits.
But sure, let’s pretend these glorified battery chargers absolve collective guilt. Social media’s latest performative ritual—slap a panel on your railing, flood Instagram with hashtags, ignore the 14-month waiting list for certified installers. Peak late-stage decarbonization theater: all aesthetics, no grid.
At least it’s honest. We’ve stopped pretending policy can fix anything. Why demand competent governance when you can DIY your dystopia?
how very on-brand for a nation that dismantled nuclear plants to cozy up with Putin’s pipelines.
classic german meme, to be fair, they do actually have some pretty decent renewable production, they just really shot themselves in the foot while hiking up a mountain with that move.
Germany’s energy transition is a masterclass in contradictions. Dismantling nuclear plants—clean, reliable, and efficient—only to lean on Russian gas and coal is not just shortsighted but self-sabotaging. The Energiewende, while ambitious, has exposed Germany to geopolitical vulnerabilities and grid instability. Renewable expansion is commendable but insufficient without robust infrastructure and energy storage.
The reliance on balcony solar panels and rooftop systems reeks of performative sustainability. These micro-solutions barely scratch the surface of Germany’s energy needs yet are paraded as revolutionary. Meanwhile, bureaucratic inertia delays large-scale renewable projects.
The nuclear phase-out, driven by political expediency rather than pragmatism, left an energy vacuum filled by fossil fuels. A true green transition demands realism: embrace nuclear, bolster renewables, and stop romanticizing half-measures.
it literally is clean, the only dirty thing about it is building a nuclear plant, and the mining of uranium, the only unique thing here being the mining of uranium, and technically the scale of construction, but im still not convinced that a nuclear plant produces more CO2 in construction phase, than it will offset in it’s lifetime, maybe solar and wind edge it out, but again, nuclear energy already exists, it’s a heavily established industry and well regulated, so it’s not like it should be the first focus on the chopping block. Especially compared to all the modern problems we have with solar, like the rare earth metals, and mining conditions often experienced. Wind turbines are better, but have issues with scaling, and waste.
destruction of uranium mining is far less than the mining of rare earth metals, coal, oil, gas, iron, copper, bauxite, can i keep going? You need VASTLY less uranium than ANY of these other materials. It’s quite literally a non concern at scale.
the toxic cooling water
you clearly understand nothing about nuclear power, Do you live next/nearby a nuclear power plant? If so can you tell me what plant it is so i can do some research on it? Even if i grant you this argument, in the BWR design, which is ancient and hasnt been used in 20 years, which is technically going to have radiation products in the primary turbine loop (the cooling loop is mechanically isolated and has ZERO radiation products in it, unless it fails, and even if it DID fail, it would decay so quickly the chance of it causing harm is going to be almost zero, not to mention that the plant would probably shut down very quickly.
If we’re talking modern reactor designs, like the PWR, they have a primary pressurized loop, which is going to have radiation products in it, however this is also a pressurized loop and unsuitable for running a turbine, so it’s going to be coupled to a heat exchanger for the turbine loop, which is then also going to be coupled to another heat exchanger so the chances of BOTH of these loops failing and releasing radiation products is quite literally, impossible. Even TMI had zero known radiation products released, there have been groups and studies claiming that there was, but those were not suitably backed up, and provide no significant proof, there’s also tons of evidence against these claims, notably the reactor PCV wasn’t penetrated, meaning it was entirely contained, so it’s extremely unlikely any amount of radiation got outside of that containment, and if we did, we would know about.
Fukushima is probably the go to point out here, but fukushima was a BWR reactor, and uh, fucking exploded. I only know of three nuclear incidents where reactors exploded, one being chernobyl, an objectively bad reactor core design, SL1 which was user error, and a bad design. And well, fukushima, which was user error, bad design, bad regulation, and bad handling. TMI just melted, so nothing funny happened there.
little bonus tidbit here, if we’re talking modern designs, which are going to be either gas or metal/salt cooling based, where it’s practically impossible to have a significant failure event, especially with designs like the SSR. Even if you did manage to spill metal/salt fuel it’s going to be self contained within the fuel itself. The SSR design takes this one step farther and puts the fuel into fuel rods, which then sit in a salt pool.
spend radioactive fuel rods
these are only a problem for certain reactor designs, designs like the CANDU reactor, and other fast reactor designs (any molten salt/metal reactor is by definition a fast reactor btw) can actually burn the spent waste from PWR designs as fuel, bringing it down to a much safer less significant point in the product chain, by that point encasing them in concrete is going to entirely absorb all of the radiation emitted, and any sort of criticality incident is going to be impossible. And if you’re REALLY concerned about these casks, go put them far underground in a big deep hole.
contaminated machinery.
we’ve literally been working with this shit since nuclear bombs, contamination is quite literally a solved problem, some reactor designs even burn straight unprocessed uranium, though the after products are particularly nasty, those can also be burnt off
Real clean…
compared to something like coal? Absolutely, even when comparing to the fabled wind and solar energy, it’s still right up beside them in terms of the rankings. Nuclear power is only bad if you’re scared of it.
The relentless march of sustainable cosplay continues. A million Germans clinging to plasticky solar trinkets like rosary beads against energy insecurity—how very on-brand for a nation that dismantled nuclear plants to cozy up with Putin’s pipelines. Nothing screams “green revolution” like propping up coal while bureaucrats hyperventilate over balcony wattage permits.
But sure, let’s pretend these glorified battery chargers absolve collective guilt. Social media’s latest performative ritual—slap a panel on your railing, flood Instagram with hashtags, ignore the 14-month waiting list for certified installers. Peak late-stage decarbonization theater: all aesthetics, no grid.
At least it’s honest. We’ve stopped pretending policy can fix anything. Why demand competent governance when you can DIY your dystopia?
Are you under the impression that the people buying solar for themselves are against sustainable energy solutions on a state level?
classic german meme, to be fair, they do actually have some pretty decent renewable production, they just really shot themselves in the foot while hiking up a mountain with that move.
Germany’s energy transition is a masterclass in contradictions. Dismantling nuclear plants—clean, reliable, and efficient—only to lean on Russian gas and coal is not just shortsighted but self-sabotaging. The Energiewende, while ambitious, has exposed Germany to geopolitical vulnerabilities and grid instability. Renewable expansion is commendable but insufficient without robust infrastructure and energy storage.
The reliance on balcony solar panels and rooftop systems reeks of performative sustainability. These micro-solutions barely scratch the surface of Germany’s energy needs yet are paraded as revolutionary. Meanwhile, bureaucratic inertia delays large-scale renewable projects.
The nuclear phase-out, driven by political expediency rather than pragmatism, left an energy vacuum filled by fossil fuels. A true green transition demands realism: embrace nuclear, bolster renewables, and stop romanticizing half-measures.
i still think the green party is nothing but a meme and should be completely abolished, just fucks up the voting outcomes.
Nuclear as clean? Now that’s loco talk.
it literally is clean, the only dirty thing about it is building a nuclear plant, and the mining of uranium, the only unique thing here being the mining of uranium, and technically the scale of construction, but im still not convinced that a nuclear plant produces more CO2 in construction phase, than it will offset in it’s lifetime, maybe solar and wind edge it out, but again, nuclear energy already exists, it’s a heavily established industry and well regulated, so it’s not like it should be the first focus on the chopping block. Especially compared to all the modern problems we have with solar, like the rare earth metals, and mining conditions often experienced. Wind turbines are better, but have issues with scaling, and waste.
The destructiveness of mining uranium, the toxic cooling water, spend radioactive fuel rods and contaminated machinery.
Real clean…
destruction of uranium mining is far less than the mining of rare earth metals, coal, oil, gas, iron, copper, bauxite, can i keep going? You need VASTLY less uranium than ANY of these other materials. It’s quite literally a non concern at scale.
you clearly understand nothing about nuclear power, Do you live next/nearby a nuclear power plant? If so can you tell me what plant it is so i can do some research on it? Even if i grant you this argument, in the BWR design, which is ancient and hasnt been used in 20 years, which is technically going to have radiation products in the primary turbine loop (the cooling loop is mechanically isolated and has ZERO radiation products in it, unless it fails, and even if it DID fail, it would decay so quickly the chance of it causing harm is going to be almost zero, not to mention that the plant would probably shut down very quickly.
If we’re talking modern reactor designs, like the PWR, they have a primary pressurized loop, which is going to have radiation products in it, however this is also a pressurized loop and unsuitable for running a turbine, so it’s going to be coupled to a heat exchanger for the turbine loop, which is then also going to be coupled to another heat exchanger so the chances of BOTH of these loops failing and releasing radiation products is quite literally, impossible. Even TMI had zero known radiation products released, there have been groups and studies claiming that there was, but those were not suitably backed up, and provide no significant proof, there’s also tons of evidence against these claims, notably the reactor PCV wasn’t penetrated, meaning it was entirely contained, so it’s extremely unlikely any amount of radiation got outside of that containment, and if we did, we would know about.
Fukushima is probably the go to point out here, but fukushima was a BWR reactor, and uh, fucking exploded. I only know of three nuclear incidents where reactors exploded, one being chernobyl, an objectively bad reactor core design, SL1 which was user error, and a bad design. And well, fukushima, which was user error, bad design, bad regulation, and bad handling. TMI just melted, so nothing funny happened there.
little bonus tidbit here, if we’re talking modern designs, which are going to be either gas or metal/salt cooling based, where it’s practically impossible to have a significant failure event, especially with designs like the SSR. Even if you did manage to spill metal/salt fuel it’s going to be self contained within the fuel itself. The SSR design takes this one step farther and puts the fuel into fuel rods, which then sit in a salt pool.
these are only a problem for certain reactor designs, designs like the CANDU reactor, and other fast reactor designs (any molten salt/metal reactor is by definition a fast reactor btw) can actually burn the spent waste from PWR designs as fuel, bringing it down to a much safer less significant point in the product chain, by that point encasing them in concrete is going to entirely absorb all of the radiation emitted, and any sort of criticality incident is going to be impossible. And if you’re REALLY concerned about these casks, go put them far underground in a big deep hole.
we’ve literally been working with this shit since nuclear bombs, contamination is quite literally a solved problem, some reactor designs even burn straight unprocessed uranium, though the after products are particularly nasty, those can also be burnt off
compared to something like coal? Absolutely, even when comparing to the fabled wind and solar energy, it’s still right up beside them in terms of the rankings. Nuclear power is only bad if you’re scared of it.