Krazy Krauts. Japan sits on the junction of several major tectonic plates and is famous for its geological instability - you don't need to be a geophysicist to figure out why nuclear power isn't such a great idea in a country like that. Germany, on the other hand, sits comfortably over the Eurasian plate and is relatively geologically stable.

Thanks to an irrational kneejerk reaction to the Fukushima disaster, Germany now a) doesn't have enough power - and the German winter is cold enough that some poor buggers will probably end up freezing to death; b) will move away from nuclear to the less ecologically sound alternative of coal burning and c) will pay a lot more for its energy. So much for the idea that the Germans are a sensible lot...

Dear Twerps and Nongs

But isn't there a remote chance that Germany can convert dirty coal fired exhaust into carbon captured poison gas (being a German specialty)?

Germany's final (environmental) solution will therefore be almost as illogical as Gillard's carbon scheme - wherein we the poor taxpayers will support environmental profittering by 500 of Australia's largest polluting companies.

Only twerps and nongs would fail to understand the logic of Gillard's Green forced carbon tax to justify rises in energy prices by big business....

Pete

The Germans are setting themselves up for mass humiliation if this experiment backfires. Conceivably they could get a worst of both worlds outcome whereby they have both lower GDP and higher emissions. They seem somewhat loopy on two fronts; firstly despite some 20,000 tsunami deaths nobody at Fukushima got a fatal dose of radiation and secondly by building new coal plants while espousing green ideals. If at the same time they want to bail out Greece and Italy and compensate nuclear generators they may have bitten off more than they can chew. It's hard to see how this can end well.

As other posters have noted, the German government has been stampeded into a solving a problem that exists in Japan, not Germany. How many of the nuclear plants in Germany are like to get hit with a tsunami? And by closing the plants Merkel has guaranteed an increase in the emmisions which the green groups are lobbying to avoid.

This is momumentally bad policy on the part of the German government.

It is fascinating to watch the different reactions to Fukushima in UK and Germany. Never did I expect to see Germany behave in a ludicrous way whilst UK (possible exception of Scotland) acted sensibly. After the Japanese disaster (the tsunami and earthquake, not the nuclear incident which killed nobody) the UK government set up a scientific inquiry as to whether they should go ahead with building the 9 or 10 new nuclear stations that were planned.
Boffins said that because UK does not have earthquakes of any great magnitude and no tsunamis the construction should proceed. When that decision was read out on the House of Commons the government - Conservativ - said so we go ahead. Minister sat down, up gets shadow Minister - Labour - and said yes, absolutely, go ahead. Even the one Green, who of course comes from a wealthy seaside area on the South Coast, said go ahead so long as it does not require subsidy.
Merkel has been a big disappointment in many ways, her moronic performance, albeit politically popular, will cost Germany dear in the future.

You had better have another look at wherever you are getting your info from. My info is the reactor that is shut down now will not be restarted, and replaced with alt; renewable energy. All reactors will be shut down by 2022, and replaced with alt renewable energy. There is no mention of burning coal for power.