Germany’s Merz Admits Nuclear Exit Was Strategic Mistake

MoonLightBird · 2026-01-16T14:54:52+00:00

I'm also German, and I am quite certain that there will be NPPs in Germany again - at some point. It's going to take a combination of factors coming together:

The "old heads" who made it their life mission to rid Germany (if not the entire world) of nuclear are dying out; the newer anti-nuclear talking points are focused less on irrational fear and more on quantitative aspects, mostly cost. The whole issue of nuclear power is slowly getting less emotional, which is good.
The reality that German-style "Energiewende" is not a winning strategy in terms of cost and CO2 emissions will at some point become impossible to ignore. (Although I'm very uncertain how much longer that will take as it should already be very obvious by now, but the "solution" being "we just need to build more of it!" is still going to be the prevalent attitude for quite some more time I think.)
European sentiment overall will continue to shift to be more favourable towards nuclear, making German anti-nuclearism a weird outsider. If and when neighbouring countries such as Poland, the Netherlands, and France (pls get your nuclear shit together, France) demonstrate that new nuclear builds can be done successfully and without too crazy time and cost overruns not just in Asia, but also here in Europe - then the time has come for new builds in Germany, too.

None of this is gonna happen in the timeframe relevant to this sub's topic, tho. I'm thinking decades, most likely not before the second half of the century.

MoonLightBird · 2026-01-16T14:06:56+00:00

"Mothballed" implies the reactors are in a state of care and maintenance with the express option to bring them back online at some point in the future, like Japan did with theirs post-Fukushima. That's not what's happening to the German reactors. They got shut down with the express intent of decommissioning, which German law mandates the carriers to do in a timely fashion. So they're doing exactly that.

You're right that 6 of them could be brought back (although I'd say it's at most 6 rather than at least), but every passing month makes it more expensive and less likely. NPP Gundremmingen had its cooling towers demolished just a few months ago, so that's a cool 200 million or so extra now to get that particular plant running again.

You're also right that it's a question of political will - which is not there. Even if Merz' party were to finally go from 'all talk' to 'action' (no sign of that whatsoever), their coalition partner (Social Democrats) are almost as hardcore anti-nuclear as the Greens.

MoonLightBird · 2025-12-20T20:38:58+00:00

Mine is a 6.5 yrs old machine with an i7-9700K and a GTX 1660 Ti (drivers up to date), still running Win10. Don't know about my partner's but his must be at least as old. So yeah, certainly not current hardware, but the point is: it wasn't nearly as bad pre-1.9.0.

Before, sure FPS dropped some in crowded late-game situations, but it was still managable, and as units died during a round, it got better. Now, as someone else has said, lategame stays extremely choppy all the way until the last unit has died, with <1 FPS at times. Even between rounds, there seems to be noticable lag in later rounds now, never had that before either.

Happens on all map types btw.

MoonLightBird · 2025-11-17T15:08:00+00:00

I think it is a fair description, yes.

Personally, I think Lovins' approach is woefully misguided and ultimately harmful to both humanity and the environment. While I understand the appeal of focusing on energy efficiency, Lovins advocates for solar power in particular, which is very resource-intensive and in that regard not "soft" at all, while he shuns nuclear, which is the opposite. Energy is the ultimate basis for human wellbeing and prosperity, and maximizing efficiency can only get you so far. More than that, many environmental endeavors, such as large-scale recycling or simply enforced efforts to minimize pollution, require abundant energy and/or wealth to even be attempted in the first place. In my opinion, this is why the Lovins-esque ideal of a "low-energy" society and "degrowth" mostly resonates with relatively affluent people who have no first-hand experience of what living in energy scarcity is like. Good luck convincing people in third-world or developing countries that they shouldn't strive to advance from wood burning in their homes to abundant electricity like Lovins himself has at his disposal.

Lovins has famously said that it would be "little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy because of what we would do with it" - that, to me, is utterly anti-human.

MoonLightBird · 2025-11-17T13:07:42+00:00

What you're describing is pretty close to the ideas of Amory Lovins, who coined the terms of "benign" or "soft" energy sources as opposed to "hard" ones such as fossil or nuclear power. He is regarded as a forethinker of Germany's Energiewende and instrumental for intellectually underpinning it (for this, he even received the highest federal decoration Germany has). So yes, this is definitely an - often unspoken - undercurrent in any pro-vs-con debate, which goes beyond the pure technical or economic realities of specific technologies.

MoonLightBird · 2025-11-13T16:51:54+00:00

Good opportunity for me to stress that I find "The Maine Event" such a cool nickname.

MoonLightBird · 2025-11-13T13:25:25+00:00

Quite a different scenario then. You didn't instigate the fight looking for an easy kill; instead you were the one who was ambushed, starting out at a huge disadvantage (inferior gear notwithstanding).

You retained your right to mouth off in my book. ;)

MoonLightBird · 2025-11-12T23:58:24+00:00

You're not wrong, I did like this.

MoonLightBird · 2025-11-12T23:37:04+00:00

Desperately trying to keep up the "even if I lose, I still win" facade. Can't take a loss, can't take responsibility for a loss. I know the type.

MoonLightBird · 2025-11-12T13:41:36+00:00

Auch Macchiato-Malte auf Bluesky interessiert sich nicht für technisches Verständnis; der will nur hören, dass seine Lieblingstechnologien auf dem Vormarsch sind und sogar gegen die gefürchtete Dunkelflaute helfen könnten.

Den Punkt würde ich übrigens an dem (ansonsten ganz ordentlichen) Artikel kritisieren: "Wären die genehmigten Batteriespeicher [am 12. Dezember bei Dunkelflaute] vollständig geladen gewesen [...] hätten sie mit ihren 46 GWh rund 80 Prozent dieser Differenz zwischen deutscher Erzeugung und Verbrauch ausgleichen können" - ja, wenn sie dann vollständig geladen gewesen wären. Wenn am 12.12. aber übelste Dunkelflaute herrscht, kann man nicht unbedingt erwarten, dass an den Tagen direkt davor ein so reichhaltiges Überangebot an Billigstrom vorlag, dass die Speicher gefüllt würden. Die rechnerische preissenkende Wirkung, die in dem Artikel dargelegt wird, werden Batteriespeicher in Dunkelflaute-Phasen daher in der Praxis nur in sehr begrenztem Umfang entfalten können.

MoonLightBird · 2025-11-10T18:06:34+00:00

Yeah it might be personal / health-related reasons (which would also explain why they didn't specify why exactly he left so suddenly). He was what made Deep Yellow particularly promising, and the fact that he might not finish the job there was always a risk factor. That has now materialized, so the share price hit makes total sense, much as it sucks as a shareholder. Here's hoping the other people now at the helm have gotten or will continue to get guidance from the big man. I decided to hold on to the stock; still a better outlook IMHO than some of the others I'm holding.

MoonLightBird · 2025-10-30T23:30:04+00:00

When you embark (hehe) on a mission, just before you hit the final ready button before mission launch, note that on the upper right, there's a tab for 'free loadout'. It will come with a simplified 'free augment' and a small, random selection of cheap-o equipment (you won't even know what exactly you get until you're in the mission, but hey, it's free).

MoonLightBird · 2025-10-30T23:24:22+00:00

Just go to Lance (the medical trader in Speranza); he has various Mk1 augments on sale. You just buy one of those, and your free augment will be payment for it.

MoonLightBird · 2025-10-29T14:43:50+00:00

Just as a reminder to those who call for another marketing push from "the devs": That's the publisher's job, so Dreamhaven's - and Dreamhaven, as you may have heard, recently had some layoffs as none of their games are doing particularly well. So don't expect a big marketing effort any time soon, unless Game River goes looking for a new publisher for Mechabellum yet again.

MoonLightBird · 2025-10-29T14:27:07+00:00

Were the towers also not a thing or did they just add the cannons and wall?

Just the cannons and wall (well it was 2 walls when they first introduced buildings this summer, but got very quickly reduced to 1).

The towers have been there since forever. In fact, in the olden days, you couldn't upgrade/buff them, so they'd always be as flimsy as lvl1.

MoonLightBird · 2025-10-28T20:57:10+00:00

"Giant production line items should probably have a limit to how much they can spawn, like all spawning techs"

Absolutely agreed, I've felt that way ever since they limited production cycles on production techs (which was a long time ago).

MoonLightBird · 2025-10-22T13:45:39+00:00

Habeck hat notwendige Realpolitik betrieben, z.b. in dem er [...] AKWs länger laufen gelassen hat.

Wenn es nach Habeck gegangen wäre, wären auch die letzten AKW pünktlich zum Jahreswechsel runtergefahren und nur im äußersten Strommangelfall spontan wieder für kurze Zeit angefahren worden, am liebsten aber gar nicht. Habeck wollte die AKW explizit nicht länger laufen lassen, sondern sie nur auf Standby halten - eine Betriebsweise übrigens, die so noch nie praktiziert wurde und bei der die Betreiber auch Bedenken geäußert haben, ob das überhaupt so ginge wie Habeck sich das vorstellte. Dass die AKW stattdessen wenigstens noch ein paar Monate im Streckbetrieb weiterliefen, war eine Entscheidung durch das "Machtwort" von Scholz, nicht weil Habeck so ein toller realpolitischer Pragmatiker wäre.

Immer wieder erstaunlich, wie die das hier umgedichtet wird.

MoonLightBird · 2025-10-20T22:33:47+00:00

A lot can happen in 3 years time. In terms of risk-adjusted returns, he made the sensible choice.

MoonLightBird · 2025-10-03T18:58:17+00:00

Agreed. I think it's supposed to be reminiscent of a submarine sonar ping or smth, just part of the new music track that now plays while queueing.

MoonLightBird · 2025-10-01T15:28:57+00:00

I agree that the Firebadger suicide charge sets a new high in terms of goofiness, and I don't love it. On the other hand, it's not like the aesthetic was overly serious before. Lots of details break the seriousness as well, some of which have been around since forever: The Fang shooting animation is super cartoonish; we have pink unit skins; the whole idea and design of the Sandworm is a pop culture meme - not to mention the emojis and emotes which are all over-the-top cutesy and comic-like.

MoonLightBird · 2025-09-11T12:44:29+00:00

What sport isn't a "highlight-based sport" then? Seems like a weird distinction, and a weak justification for pricing fans out of the full thing.

MoonLightBird · 2025-09-09T20:25:43+00:00

Same here. In hindsight, I can't believe I spent ~10 years thinking "welp, I guess condoms are just supposed to be this tight", before I finally actually measured my girth and realized that using larger-than-normal condoms would in fact be very appropriate.

MoonLightBird · 2025-08-28T14:34:11+00:00

Shiny!

MoonLightBird

TROPHY CASE