German Nuclear Power Phase Out a "Huge Mistake"- Chancellor Merz

An important under-reported speech

This is the background article to the article I coauthored which was published earlier today in Tuco’s Child Newsletter.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz - Photo Credit: KRIB - Bulgaria

German Nuclear Power Phase Out a "Huge Mistake" per Chancellor Merz

My objective in this article is to provide additional background regarding this important under-reported story which has significant parallels to the challenges to extended operations of Diablo Canyon Power Plant (DCPP) in California. The common theme is that fossil fuel interests desire nuclear power plants to be shut down to serve their business objectives. In the case of Germany, it is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s objective to weaponize Russia’s abundant natural gas, particularly in furtherance of Russia’s goal to forcibly take over Ukraine while minimizing Germany’s ability to prevent the takeover. This theme has been explored in several GreenNUKE articles and in Californians for Green Nuclear Power’s (CGNP) filing in objection to the WWGPI before the WIEB-CREPC.

CGNP objects to PacifiCorp’s apparent goal of needlessly shutting down DCPP for commercial advantage.

CGNP remains optimistic that some of the journalists who read this article will report on the story. There has not been any coverage of Chancellor Merz’s January 15, 2026 speech in the Western mainstream media.

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Here is Google’s summary as of January 19, 2026.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently called Germany’s nuclear power phase-out a “huge strategic mistake,” stating it has led to insufficient energy capacity, inflated costs, and an overly expensive energy transition reliant on subsidies and fossil fuels, contrasting Germany’s path with countries like France that leverage nuclear power for lower emissions. Merz’s comments, made at a German Chamber of Commerce event in January 2026, reignited debate over energy security, highlighting increased reliance on coal and gas, and pushing Germany to become the world’s most costly energy transformer.

Key Points from Merz’s Statements:

· “Serious strategic mistake”: He described the decision to phase out nuclear energy as a major strategic error.

· Energy Capacity: Germany lacks sufficient domestic energy generation, necessitating government intervention to keep prices down.

· High Costs: The nuclear exit has complicated and significantly increased the cost of Germany’s energy transition, making it the “most expensive in the entire world,” according to Merz.

· Economic Impact: The move has forced greater reliance on fossil fuels like coal and imported gas, increasing emissions and dependence on foreign energy sources.

Context of the Debate:

· Germany accelerated its nuclear phase-out after the 2011 Fukushima disaster, closing its last reactors in 2023.

· Critics, including the IEA head and other analysts, have long warned of negative consequences for energy stability and climate goals, advocating for nuclear power as a reliable, low-carbon baseload.

· French President Macron is pursuing more nuclear power, while Germany faces challenges in balancing renewables with consistent energy supply.

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Here is the January 17, 2026 Bulgarian KRIB news article that Google draws on:

Merz: Germany made a huge mistake by abandoning nuclear energy

https://www.publicnow.com/view/DFFDE1E7FC3EE6F1392E4811A225552758F1BB86

Original article at: https://www.krib.bg/en/%d0%bc%d0%b5%d1%80%d1%86-%d0%b3%d0%b5%d1%80%d0%bc%d0%b0%d0%bd%d0%b8%d1%8f-%d0%b4%d0%be%d0%bf%d1%83%d1%81%d0%bd%d0%b0-%

Here’s the above URL in Cyrillic:

The photo of German Chancellor Merz shown above is courtesy of KRIB.

KRIB - CONFEDERATION OF EMPLOYERS AND INDUSTRIALISTS IN BULGARIA

01/17/2026 | News release | Distributed by Public on 01/16/2026 21:35

The key quote from Chancellor Merz is:

"The abandonment of nuclear energy was a serious strategic mistake. At least they had left the last nuclear power plants in Germany in operation three years ago, so that we would have the electricity generation capacity that we had at that time. We are now making the most expensive energy transition in the entire world. (Emphasis added.) I don't know of any other country that is making this transition as difficult and expensive as Germany. We set ourselves a goal that we now have to adjust, but we simply don't have enough energy generation capacity,"

The KRIB article misleadingly claimed that restart of Germany’s nuclear power reactors is unfeasible.

Here’s a May, 2025 rebuttal to the KRIB claim from analysts at Radiant Energy Group.

https://tinyurl.com/Germany-Nuclear-Restart

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Since I have taken coursework for German language comprehension and have traveled to Germany, I constructed a German language query to determine if there had been any mainstream German media coverage of Chancellor Merz’s January 15, 2026 speech. Here’s a query that should return relevant results:

“Großer Fehler” “ Friedrich Merz” “ Kernenergie” “Deutsche Industrie- und Handelskammer”

There has been no German coverage. Here’s a likely contributing factor from Germany: The counterfactual Socialist thought leadership that a modern Western industrial society may be powered by intermittent sunlight and randomly-occurring breezes named “Energiewende. (Energy Transition.) The German Green movement began in the 1970s.

The political advocacy of German Greens is partially funded via German taxpayers through the Heinrich Böll Foundation (hbs.) Here’s an anti-nuclear power example post: “Renewables replace nuclear and lower emissions simultaneously,” Craig Morris, 20 Nov 2019, Energy Transition - The Global Energiewende blog. https://energytransition.org/2019/11/renewables-replace-nuclear-and-lower-emissions-simultaneously/

An Initiative of the Heinrich Böll Foundation. © 2012 - 2024. The Heinrich Böll Foundation receives German taxpayer funded subsidies. The hbs has elegant offices in Berlin,Germany. The hbs also has offices in the West Bank of Palestine, Moscow, Russia, Beijing, China, and Washington, DC. Many of the policies of the hbs are Socialist policies.

The Socialist quest for geopolitical advantage also grants the socialist BRICS nations a pass regarding the generous use of fossil energy and nuclear power, which according to this thought leadership, the industrial West is supposed to avoid.

During the past quarter of a century, coal consumption in Communist China has significantly increased. Here’s an informative coal consumption chart from the International Energy Agency (IEA) publication regarding Coal 2025 which was published in December, 2025.

From page 13 of the IEA publication at https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/113a8274-500c-4684-951f-947d25bef3c9/Coal2025.pdf The units at the left are millions of metric tons.

For the past several years, China has consumed more coal that the rest of the world combined. In 2025, China consumed about 56% of the world’s consumption, at about 4,953 million metric tons. The annual emissions from China’s coal consumption dwarf any emission reductions accomplished by the industrial West.

There is also the mercantilist dimension to the push for entities such as California to adopt solar, wind, and batteries. The supply chains for all three technologies begin in China. China intensely lobbies the California government to install more solar, wind, and batteries. All the top-ranked wind generation firms by new installations are Chinese. In response to a pullback by the West in purchasing new wind turbines which started about 24 months ago, China is now installing these wind turbines in China. (This seems to be an echo of the Chinese central planner’s push to build large multistory apartments in China which collapsed a few years ago. A number of these developments now stand vacant.)

In summary, this Chinese environmental thought leadership is actually a hefty dose of hypocrisy accompanied by a desire to sell more solar, wind, and batteries. As CGNP has noted, the power from solar, wind, and batteries is parasitic power. There must be sufficient nuclear and fossil fired generation operating at all times on a power grid to provide sufficient reactive power and necessary synchronous grid inertia.

Here are some additional articles regarding Chancellor Merz’s January 15, 2026 speech:

https://brusselssignal.eu/2026/01/germanys-shut-down-of-nuclear-plants-a-huge-mistake-says-merz/

https://www.nucnet.org/news/germany-s-merz-says-nuclear-phaseout-was-huge-mistake-1-5-2026

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2026/01/16/german-chancellor-merz-admits-shutting-down-nuclear-energy-production-was-a-severe-strategic-mistake/

YouTube video on the German Nuclear Rethink:

Here’s a hat tip to fellow nuclear power advocate Mark H. He sent me this link on Sunday morning: https://www.webpronews.com/german-chancellor-merz-admits-nuclear-phase-out-was-huge-mistake/

Please disseminate this information and comment below. Thank you.