Germany's Self-Destructive Anti-Nuclear Propaganda

When Will the Delusion Reach Its Breaking Point?

"I realize man is terribly malleable, uncertain of himself, ready to accept and to follow many suggestions, and is tossed about by all the winds of doctrine" – Jacques Ellul

I have a confession to make: I played a role in Europe’s energy crisis — and yes, it paid well.

Of course, I was only a tiny cog in a huge machine. But I did my part. Back when I got out of law school, my first proper job was with an international law firm that specialized in infrastructure projects. Their bread-and-butter gigs were wind farm transactions. Insurance companies were a common type of client.

Insurance companies collect heaps of cash every month in the form of premiums. They don’t want that money to sit idle, so they need to invest this float somehow. One attractive option? Wind power in Germany.

In Germany, wind farms receive a guaranteed payment for 20 years. The spot market electricity price doesn’t matter that much. If market prices fall below the guaranteed rate, wind farm operators receive a “market premium” to make up the difference.

“Where’s that market premium coming from?” you may ask. Consumers foot the bill –especially private households. Energy-intensive industrial clients can be exempt from paying it.

This was back in 2015, a boom time for the entire industry. Everyone was cashing in: wind farm developers, turbine manufacturers, landowners, big banks, insurance companies, conference organizers, and, of course, lawyers.

I did my part

But market mechanisms were already a thing back then. The massive increase in generation capacity had begun to exceed demand on certain days. The result? Negative energy prices on the spot market. That seemed to worry team “Energy Transition” a little. But as long as the cash kept rolling in, hardly anyone seemed to really care.

One senior associate returning from a trade conference said someone suggested building “huge water boilers” to absorb the excess energy. I swear, I’m not making this up.

ChatGPT’s solution to wind power’s volatility

Phasing out nuclear power was already a done deal by then. This explains the frenzy to install wind turbines on every available patch of land. But alas, too much wind – and thus too much electricity – is only one side of wind power. The flip side? No wind, no power.

To plug the power gap, Germany is now switching on natural gas and coal-fired plants. As a result, prices are soaring, and the country is steadily de-industrializing itself.

For a rundown of the situation, check out

Robert Bryce

’s: Germany Is Dunkelf**ked (And subscribe to his Substack while you’re at it.)

All this is done in the name of a green energy transition.

If this sounds crazy, that’s because it is

People often cite George Orwell when it comes to state-mandated craziness. But Jacques Ellul’s work might offer deeper insights.

In 1962 his book Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes, Ellul challenged the notion that propaganda is primarily a tool of authoritarian regimes. Democracies rely heavily on propaganda to maintain public consensus and ensure compliance.

The German government’s framing of its energy transition is a prime example of Ellulian propaganda in action.

Let’s establish some ground truths before we dive in:

Germany both imports and exports electricity with all its neighbors.

Germany used to export more electricity than it imported. Here are the 2022 numbers, back when the country’s last three nuclear reactors were still online:

• Import: 43.80 TWh

• Export: 70.70 TWh

Now that all nuclear reactors have been shut down, this ratio is almost exactly reversed in 2024. Germany is now a net importer:

• Import: 72.50 TWh

• Export: 44.30 TWh

Most of these imports are from “green” energy supplied by Scandinavian countries. However, about 20% of all imports come from France, where nuclear power is the primary source.

Twenty percent is a significant number. If these imports vanished, big industries would face cutbacks, and Germany would burn through even more oil and gas than it already does.

More importantly, nuclear power is a baseload source. It’s the reason Germany gets to keep lights on 24/7. Without baseload power, the electrical grid would be a chaotic mess of blackouts and failures, leaving homes and industries at the mercy of wind and sunshine.

As

Doomberg

puts it:

In other words, Germany remains dependent on nuclear power.

“The propagandist does not necessarily have to worry about coherence and unity.” – Jacques Ellul

But how does the German government frame it?

A recent Twitter exchange between opposition politician Jens Spahn and the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action is eye-opening.

Spahn accused the German government of having “begged” for French nuclear power in. He was referencing a leaked letter from German Minister Habeck to French Minister Pannier-Runacher.

The Ministry replied:

The statement is incorrect. It’s actually the opposite: it wasn’t about importing electricity from France to Germany, but rather about exporting electricity to France to secure France’s power supply. At the time, Federal Minister Habeck had to calculate how much electricity Germany would need to deliver to France during the winter of 2022/23 to compensate for the outages of France’s unreliable nuclear power plants. In 2022, Germany exported more electricity to France than it imported every single month.

The Ministry told the truth – 100%!

And by doing so, it followed Ellul’s playbook to the letter:

In propaganda, the truth pays off […]. The necessary falsehoods, which also pay off, are in the realm of intentions and interpretations […]. The public is left to draw obvious conclusions from a cleverly presented truth […]. To obtain this result, propaganda must be based on some truth that can be said in few words and is able to linger in the collective consciousness.

Here are the “obvious conclusions” the public is apparently supposed to draw from the Ministry’s tweet.

1. Germany’s energy supply is more reliable than France’s (“Germany… secure[s] France’s power supply”).

2. Nuclear power is unreliable (“compensate for… unreliable nuclear power plants”).

3. Germany produces so much electricity, it can easily export it (“Germany exported more electricity to France than it imported”).

But of course, the Ministry conveniently left out critical details:

Germany exported so much electricity to France in 2022 for a simple reason: Three of its nuclear reactors were still online. Today, in 2024, Germany imports 6.5 times more electricity from France than vice versa (15.41 TWh vs. 2.37 TWh).

Germany dismantling its source of wealth: Demolition of Biblis cooling towers

And yes, it’s true that France’s nuclear plants struggled during the 2022 heat wave. But doesn’t that make an even stronger case for keeping your own nuclear power plants running? Crazy idea, I know.

Sure, you can try to phase out an unloved industry. But maybe you shouldn’t drive a major source of your energy supply off a cliff in the process. Even if you believe it will save the world from the ultimate evil: nuclear power.

All this goes to show that energy policy is complex. And the simplification of complex issues is another hallmark of modern propaganda. The creation of binary choices (good vs. evil) to manipulate public perception. The German Green party is well versed in this:

The Green-led Federal Environment Agency commissioned a study funded with €250,000 of taxpayer money in 2022. Its aim was to examine how climate-friendly nuclear power plants are.

However, the outcome was predetermined long before the investigation even began. Months before the study was put out to tender, clear expectations were outlined. The study was to deliver the following message: “Nuclear energy is neither sustainable nor a climate savior.”

What’s the aim of all of this?

Luckily, Ellul can help us answer this question too:

The aim of modern propaganda is […] to arouse an active and mythical belief.

This mythical belief is a grand, emotionally resonant narrative that explains the world and provides meaning. I won’t claim I can grasp the entirety of the narrative at work here, but I believe these are some key elements:

• Opposition to nuclear power seems rooted in a conflation of two different things: Nuclear energy as a power source and nuclear weapons programs during the Cold War.

• Fukushima, Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island serve as potent tools for the anti-nuclear movement, effectively inoculating the broader public against any rational cost-risk analysis.

• The left’s anti-corporate stance likely shapes this narrative. Only billion-dollar companies can build and maintain nuclear plants. Solar panels, on the other hand, are “cheap” and everyone can put them on their roof. It’s so grass-roots!

• There’s a hint of self-righteous, virtue-signaling masochism in enduring high energy prices. As if to say, “I’m doing my part to save the planet.”

This narrative helps a lot of people make a lot of money.

I know this because, remember, I used to be on the receiving end.

“Thanks for boosting my salary!”

But of course, society needs to be able to afford adherence to this narrative economically. Otherwise, it’ll break down at some point. And a critical mass of Germans seems to be fed up with high energy prices and is finally opposing the Green party’s anti-nuclear myth.

A note by

Emmet Penney

(you should subscribe to his brilliant Nuclear Barbarians Substack) brought a recent poll to my attention, according to which:

67% of Germans support nuclear's use for electricity generation in the country. 42% of respondents support building new plants, while only 23% support phasing out and banning nuclear energy altogether.

So maybe there is still hope to end this craziness? We’ll see after the February elections.

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