I think we should include nuclear waste in the output calculation of nuclear power plants. Just the high level waste from nuclear power plants is hundreds of thousands times more radioactive and toxic than coal plant output.

But your are right, we should move away from both of these: coal and nuclear power. And this is actually exactly what the German people want and what the government has decided. Ending coal burning is scheduled for 2038 and complete switch to renewable energy production is scheduled for 2045. This is called the Energiewende (Energy Transition) and here is the government's page on this topic: https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/schwerpunkte/klimaschutz/faq-energiewende-2067498

Google translate: https://www-bundesregierung-de.translate.goog/breg-de/schwerpunkte/klimaschutz/faq-energiewende-2067498?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp

Germans agree with this policy and we even want it faster: https://www.fr.de/wirtschaft/78-prozent-der-deutschen-wollen-eine-schnellere-energiewende-zr-92219363.html

Google translate: https://www-fr-de.translate.goog/wirtschaft/78-prozent-der-deutschen-wollen-eine-schnellere-energiewende-zr-92219363.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp

Yeah, but the only choice isn't between smoking cigarettes and smoking dynamite sticks. Coal being bad doesn't make nuclear good. Meltdowns aren't the only bad things that nuclear reactors can cause. Where I live, people are losing their heads talking about how we need more nuclear power so we can get bigger electric cars to replace bicycles and public transport (not to replace cars with internal combustion engines, of course, because how else would people get on board with building infrastructure for giant electric sports cars than to let pre-existing rustbuckets roam free and keep gas stations in operation).

At the start of the Ukraine war, it was unclear whether Russia might also launch attacks on us, including our nuclear reactors.

Russia hasn't attacked any nuclear reactors in Ukraine for obvious reasons. The notions that Russia would attack nuclear reactors in Germany is pure absurdity that no sane person could believe.

Russia also cut off our natural gas supply. We have practically no own Uranium deposits either, so reducing dependence on foreign nations was definitely in our interest, too.

That's a straight up lie. Russia never cut off gas supply to Germany, and in fact has repeatedly stated that one of Nord Stream pipelines is operational. German government is choosing to buy Russian LNG through third parties instead of buying pipeline gas directly.

What does Chernobyl have to do with Germany deciding to appease a few billionaires and burn more coal?

We've known what to do with the waste for a long time now. Also, when you use fossil fuels you're just directly polluting the environment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDUvCLAp0uU

You can put nuclear waste in a box and decide what to do with it later. CO² is less helpful that way.

This is an interesting documentary about the topic: Into eternity. The documentary has a depressing and ephemeral feeling, but I find it extremely amusing that we are taking steps to protect people that will live thousands of years from now.

Taking decisions like "nuclear or not nuclear", "how to dispose the waste", etc. is hard, but doing so ignoring the people that invest their whole life studying the topics is just dumb.

We currently do not know what to do with the waste from coal and other fossil fuel plants either though. At least nuclear waste is local and manageable. Dumping all the fossil fuel waste into the atmosphere is not working well, and is almost impossible to clean up.

Putting it in the ground is a viable solution. And it doesn't damage the environment for it to be in there and it's not like it's going to escape.

At some point in time will develop the technology to do something else with it but for now putting it in big concrete containers underground is a viable solution.

Everything we do is harmful. Using more coal is even worse. The very dirty coal that Germany is using worse worse. Depending on the method of mining coal, it is massively harmful to the workers. I don't think the method Germany is using is as bad as say the method the Appalachian miners used.

The UK hit zero coal in 2020 without even trying. 2038 is actually a piss take. If you used nuclear like France and China you would be able to do it much sooner lol.

Germany is still entirely dependent on Russian LNG, so not sure what you're talking about there. Also, seems like you conveniently forgot that Germany imports electricity from France where most electricity production is done using nuclear power

https://www.ceicdata.com/en/germany/electricity-imports-and-exports/electricity-imports-france

It might out millions of lives at risk (extremely low risk) whereas we know that CO2 from burning coal is putting billions of lives at risk.

People are really bad at calculating risk. Everyone will die from climate change. Some people might die from a radioactive leak.

Climate change is this nebulous thing that feels impersonal and a lot of people kind of don't even really believe in so they think it's an acceptable compromise.

It's making fun of Germany shutting down nuclear plants and then making up the difference with coal and other worse polluting options

Setting aside the usual discourse around STARTING to use a nuke plant: shutting one down to be replaced with coal or similar is objectively the bad environmental move

Yes, because nuclear is significantly cleaner, safer, and provides more power than any alternative.