Nuclear power plants need maintenance ("failing" France is used an example for this all the time on HN) and fuel rods. With the nuclear exit, reaffirmed by a conservative government, was decided ages ago, German nuclear plants were in no position to rwtain their certification. Nor was fuel ordered or available.
And yes, still having coal is a failure from a climate perspective. Energy was plenty so, if we exclude price hikes caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And those price hike were global.
You are in a thread saying that shutting down nuclear was a mistake because they'd have to burn coal to make up for it. At the same time you are saying that forcing new installations (and repairs to a certain extent) to use heat pumps instead of gas starting next year putting even more stress on the grid is a good move?
The "grid" wasn't "strained". The main source of cheap gas got strangled due to a war. Most of it was used in home heating and industry, neither of which nuclear would help with without more electrification.
They closed their nuclear power stations which made them even more dependent on natural gas which was in short supply, leading to an increase in the use of coal (which is supposed to be "bad for the climate" due to the higher CO₂/TWh coefficient) and an increase in electricity import dependency which in turn drove up prices in the rest of Europe. German industry is both dependent on electricity as well as natural gas, the decision to close those - perfectly functional - nuclear power plants reduced the amount of natural gas available to industry even more since it was now also needed more for electricity production. I already mentioned the higher electricity prices.
In short the "traffic light coalition" chose ideology over logic as well as ideology over the will of the German people [1] to the detriment of all - even the ideologues even though they will be hit less hard since they have well-remunerated positions and state pensions.
