Aidan asks, "Are you sure RWE's financial problems aren't caused by the cost of decommissioning its nuclear plants?"

Typical Green chutzpah, shutting down the German nuclear industry without fair warning then blaming it for woes caused while subsidizing renewable energy to business. Merkel's action against Eon and RWE, (see below), was a knee-jerk reaction that Germany will have to massively compensate, plus business closures, with more and more households cut from electricity they cannot afford.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/df44d1ee-e792-11e5-bc31-138df2ae9ee6.html#axzz4F88owHOP

I usually just shake my head at your postings, Aidan, but that only encourages your hubris. Enjoy your grand reveries.

Luciferase, what you mistake for hubris was nothing of the sort. I asked a straightforward question. FWIW I think Germany's decision to phase out nuclear power was a silly one that's going to make the transition away from fossil fuels much more expensive and technically difficult.

Unfortunately the page you linked to's inside a paywall. But I'd read elsewhere that the nuclear decommissioning was causing financial issues for RWE, so I thought the question was worth asking.

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Shadow,

Thanks for the clarification.

But I ask again: Where did you get the idea that the business cases for nuclear and renewables are so weak?

Aiden, the German government is holding the taxes that were levied
to pay the costs of decommissioning and are set aside for that task.
RWE will go broke, apparently it has reached the no way out point.
The only thing that seems to be under discussion is how to keep the
lights on after the last politican leaves Germany.

Aidan,

"Where did you get the idea that the business cases for nuclear and renewables are so weak?" - The answer is just about every technical, financial and economics article written on renewable energy.

Nuclear is not viable in Aus for the same reason that renewables aren't, primarily the very low cost of coal generated power. However, nuclear is viable in countries where there are few fossil fuel resources such as in France and Germany.

The only way renewables are viable in Aus is through uncompetitive means ie.
1 A huge feed in tariff or,
2 A massive tax on fossil fuels.

Shadow,
There's a very big difference between not being commercially viable and not even making enough operating profit to cover capital costs. My understanding is the wholesale price in Australia is quite high by international standards, and both nuclear and renewables would be able to cover the capital costs but not the financing costs. If you can find information that shows otherwise, I'd be interested in seeing it.

Come off the grass Aidan.

My power bill 10 years ago was $250 a quarter, with 3 kids at home.

Now with just 2 of us, O no change in usage, my current bill is just over $800 for a quarter.

Most of that increase is due to the feed in requirements of renewables.

As I said, the green dream of driving us back to the dark ages is alive & very very well.