Why Germany Is Rapidly Digging Europe's Largest Hole

Our official GREEN party's stance is: (quote) "We celebrate the closing of the last nuclear plant, so we can finally transition to green energy!"

Possible solution that i thought: Use nuclear power and put the waste in the holes created by the coal mining industry, when there aren’t any holes left, everything should have mostly been replaced by renewable.

It's weird how I have seen a bunch of economic channels now questioning why Germany is shutting down so many power plants "when it's obviously such a clean, efficient and green solution"

The fact that nuclear waste is getting harder and harder to store longterm and the chance of a nuclear melt down in the power plants because of human failure, which doesn't need geographic conditions like japan, are enough reasons to not run power plants anymore I'd say

Coal helps the poor you fool . I don’t see you feeding the kids who are dying from starvation!

Well, do you want electricity or not? It's that simple. Energy isn't free.

actually there is heavy dramtisation in this video. for context we are the closest of becoming carbon neutral world wide if you consider nations with more than 400 terrawatt consumption a year. fact. those mines have been there since industrialization kicked in. there are mines in the area from times when the US was farming cotton by holding black guys. germany is farmed empty already. this hole especially got bigger enforced by, i give you that, bad political decisions but the state the most mining happens in is known for those holes. wait until you hear about how insanely deep german mines can get. additionally "removing someone from his home in thirst of ressources" maybe is something that is normal to an american but in this case people have to be payed for their land at minimum actual market price so basically at the moment people there are selling houses for insane prices that otherwise would lose their value just by the destroyed surrounding in the next decade. and what do u mean "mine a different kind of coal". broooo brown coal is the MOST mined energy source on the planet not only here because its the most occuring and the most cheap even tho you have to mine more. if you are wondering why: maybe because even that small amount of industry left in germany consumes nearly as much energy as like 4-5 euro countries combined. there is no way in compensating green transformation by building nuclear plants for example. we would need HUNDREDS. thats why u use existing structures. and now i got to minute 4...ahhh we are disrespecting the green transformation ye? xDDD hahahaha put some effort in this wtf...just to put some FACTS again. germany is 60% carbon neutral. thats literally 120% of italy, 100% of france and like 400% of any other country in the eu. if this trend continues germany gets climate neutral by 2035. so again for context. france for example (which isnt even the same energy league) takes 60% of their energy from nuclear. this is possible by having no real industrial production in the country and WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED BY BUYING COAL ENERGY FROM GERMANY lelelelelelelelele. its so easy to blame germany for everything again while literally noone in europe does anything about climate. france has failed their goal already. they didnt achieve anything. the only one sticking to the promise is germany. facts.

Could result in acid rain...yeah what's the probability? U r saying like its 100%

Public net electricity generation in Germany notes fossil brown coal share of electricity generation did increase in 2021and 2022 from a low in 2020 but years 2023 and YTD 2024 the share has decreased. Fossil fuel contribution has decreased from over 50% in 2016 to under 40% in 2023 and YTD 2024.
Anyone arguing nuclear has clearly NOT understood any of the ECONOMICS that apply to a nuclear build.

Its so sad Steve Jobs died of Lignite.

The problem, is two world wars by statists, nationalists, ultra patriots, and right wingers... bascially bankrupted Europe of quality coal which got consumed by the war machines.
People knew WW1 and WW2 were devastating, but they didn't realize just how long term devastating they would be to the species. Statist nations are now bankrupting the planet of resources everywhere. Before WW1 and WW2, Germany had tons of high quality coal and other resources. Germans, please stop voting for right wingers, nationalists, and patriots. Ditto for you Americans, and everyone else around the world. These statists do an incredible amount of harm.

Nice narration! HA Could you be more condescending, pompous, arrogant or self-righteous?

The Carbon Neutral / net zero / War on Co2 & methane = PLANET KILLING AGENDAS! Without Co2 all life on Earth dies we need more Co2 not less! This climate change religion is more evil and worse than satanism!

There’s a hole being dug somewhere. You’re electric batteries don’t just fall out of the skies. This generation is condemning the last, the next generation will do the same.

Germany is in a hole, and they can't stop digging!

They needed that coal because they are idiots for closing their nuclear plants

Well it’s either that or brown outs or cutting down energy

Really is hilarious that "darling of the EU" and all their sustainable climate policies, Germany is closing down Nuclear power plants and bankrolling the Lignite production in Europe. Their mines can be seen from space.

Turning homes into mines
Turning reactors into burners

Just proves that the EU is nothing but a spineless meme organisation.

So Germany is doing to Germany what the other 1st world countries have been doing in 3rd world countries for centuries omg that’s so sad 😢😅

I Almost can see my local motercross track in the video 😂😂

I get having pride, how can we justify disruption of Life on Earth to dig out, melt down, reshape ore just because we can?

Nuclear Fusion > Coal mining

Mining companies spend A LOT of money to compensate people for their property: They don't "throw" them out of their houses, as you mention. A strip mine like this is quite easy to rehabilitate as well: yes, the landscape is "completely destroyed" but returned to its previous state at the end of the mine's life. Afterwards you wont even know there was a mine.

Russian gas would take care of this

Becoming carbon neutral is the biggest lie of the century. If it were true, we would’ve long ago done away with fossil fuels, but we can’t there’s no alternatives. anyone who says so is a crazy kook. The only way to become carbon neutral is to kill society as we know it and kill half the population on earth. Go back to where we were before the Industrial Revolution and rely on burning whale oil and wood.

It’s just coal 😂. Woke media is going all crazy over a natural resource.

This mine is an abomination of modernity.

Only the Germans could have so much self-loathing for their nation's countryside.

Now that they closed down their last Nuclear reactors, this pit will just grow larger

interesting

I always pass by this place in google maps and wonder what it is. at least I finally know

Burning high-sulfur coal WITHOUT SCRUBBERS would cool the climate.

Awesome

Good information

Your depth of facts is so shallow.

The reason why germany is not using nuclear energy is because of a certain political party (Bündnis 90 die Grünen - or the Green party) that has often been the swing vote to establish government. Traditionally in germany 2 major parties often came in at around 30% of the total votes: the conservative CDU and the labour party SPD. As neither of them could establish government on their own, often smaller parties would be bargained with to form a coalition to achieve a majority in the parliament. This allowed the green party to push through the agenda of "NO NUCLEAR POWER", since this was something a lot of germans could agree on in the 90s, especially after Tschernobyl.

Ever since those times the nuclear power has been a sort of black topic and basically politically unattainable within germany. But make no mistake, while we still had nuclear power plants running, other reasons have further pushed us into using more and more brown coal - such as the chancellor Merkels decision to "rethink her whole stance on nuclear energy" shortly after resigning leases with the energy companies for ramping up the nuclear power plants and then breaking the signed contract a few days after Fukushima plants meltdown, which incidentally happend shortly before elections... read into that what you will.

As for right now - there is actually a plan to create selfsustaining renewable energy production. The problem is, that with the current wind and solar energy, there exists no way to hold that energy.Even if the whole surface of the earth where plastered in windmills and solar panels (which is not feasable because there just arent enough raw materials), that would only lead to us having a lot of energy during the summer and during daytime, while in winter and at night we would have close to no energy output. There simply isnt a battery technology in the worl capable of sustaining even a relatively small country like Germany. Thus the plan is: relying on gas.
The government and the energy experts are trying to produce so much electricity in the summer months during the day with wind and solar energy, that they can create hydrogen gas via electrolysis. This gas can then be used to burn in powerplants, much like coal would be (this is an oversimplification!) and then produce energy even when the sun is not shining and it isnt windy.
According to the experts, gasplants can even be quite easily turned off and on again, which is not the case with coalplants and even less with nuclear plants.

The problem right now is, that with everybody rushing towards the same thing (solar panels and windmills) everything has become increasingly expensive. Covid shipping crisis and now the Ukraine war is not helping matters either. At the moment Germany is facing high inflation rates, with a lot of citizens having their energy cost increased by 700% and it seems that prices will keep rising. We will see if the nuclear power will be revisited, once people cannot afford to light or heat their homes anymore...

Good

wtf this is insane.. they are destroying the planet, i am just an ordinary human and it broke my heart.. maybe germany aren't yet affected by climate change, someday soon.. watch and learn..

Everything is correct, except the acid rain story. Germany has strict emissions laws and all powerplants have modern filters. Obviously, they are not perfect. While sulfur is retained in those filters, it is an irony that coal powerplants emit far more radioactive substances than our nuclear powerplants.

This predicament is only getting worse thanks to Germany's shit leadership.

Lignite is also produced in Russia, China, USA and Turkey in large quantities. In Europe you have Poland and Czechia as well. World Wide also Australia is producing it. But Australia is a mining nation anyways.

This did not age well. Turns out turning to Russia for energy instead of using your own energy sources was not a good idea.

An alternative is to cut the energy spent by 20%.

Today gemany decided to FURTHER INCREASE their use of coal as a power source...

Nuclear can be very dangerous

I laughed pretty good and long when I heard "green country like Germany"

So is it safe to live in Julich for next two years or not?

Hypocrites.

There's infinite supply of coal in Donbass and Putin doesn't want EU get it's hands on it.

I don't know which year it was, but our former minister of environment Altmaier decided to establish an upper ceiling on how much energy is produced by eco-friendly sources, like wind, water or solar. Let me just simplify it, he actively HINDERED us from producing more eco-friendly energy! That was our MINISTER OF ENVIRONMENT!
He made it basically illegal to produce more than a certain amount of green energy. The answer, why Germany does this is simple: corrupt politicians. They receive a large amount of money from the energy companies by actively stopping green-energy-produciton. The strongest political party back then, CDU is well known for being corrupt af. This is the reason, why we also have no speed limit to this day. The faster the people drive, the more accidents happen, the more cars get wrecked and the more new cars they can sell. So, the automobile industry (which basically rules Germany, not the politicians) give huge amounts of money to our politicians to actively avoid a speed limit. And the most perverted thing is, most of german population would rather die than to accept a speed limit (a bit exaggerated here). It is the same as with guns in America. Americans are so obsessed with guns, they would do anything to keep them. Even if this is one of the main reasons, why so many people are killed in the US. And it's the same with driving 200+kph in Germany on the Autobahn.

The Germans use pollution controls like SCR that removes sulphur and carbon capture and sequestration that removes carbon from the flu gas. Try looking at what they do to keep peoples power on for cheap instead of thinking just put up a solar panel that is an environmental nightmare to the poor people that's country they mine the products to build it and manufacture it. They dump that sludge right on the proud in China and places.