On April 22 at 10 p.m., Germany will shut down its Isar-2 nuclear power plant near Munich as part of a nationwide effort to eliminate all "dirty" forms of energy.
According to reports, the Isar-2 plant will be shut down in phases with a reduction of 10 megawatts per minute. After about 45 minutes, remaining capacity will drop to just 30 percent, and at that point the plant will automatically sever itself from Germany's nationwide energy grid.
Two additional nuclear power plants, Neckarwestheim-2 and Emsland, will undergo a similar shutdown process later that day. By midnight going into April 23, all three nuclear power facilities will be completely shuttered, "ending Germany's tumultuous six-decade reliance on nuclear energy," to quote Mining.com.
(Related: Germany has been trying to go "green" for years by shutting down all of its nuclear power facilities and replacing them with solar and wind farms.)
How much longer will Germany last without reliable and adequate energy production?
Overall, these three plants only contributed six percent of Germany's overall power generation last year, which might not seem significant until you consider the fact that Europe's largest economy is already in the throes of a serious energy crisis due to Western sanctions against Russia.
With no more gas flowing through the U.S.-destroyed Nord Stream pipeline, Germany is in a conundrum as it has failed to secure enough non-nuclear energy from other sources to make up for the loss of all these nuclear power facilities.
The expansion of so-called "renewable" energy sources in Germany has been exceptionally slow, to say the least. The nation's economy simply cannot sustain itself on wind and solar alone, minus cheap Russian natural gas which is no longer flowing into the country.
Even so, the nuclear shutdown schedule was already in motion dating back to 2002, and finalized in the aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima disaster – and German politicians saw no need to reverse it despite the latest situation in Ukraine.
"While Germans have historically been deeply opposed to nuclear energy, that has shifted in recent years as it has come to be viewed as something like the least bad option in the transition to a green economy," Mining.com reported.
"Critics worry that until Germany has sufficient clean-energy infrastructure in place, which could still be years away, the country will draw even more heavily on polluting fuels like coal to compensate for the loss."
Even left-wing climate brigadier Greta Thunberg has lobbed criticism at Germany over its decision to move away from nuclear. Also, a survey conducted last year found that 69 percent of German people agree that nuclear needs to stay, at least until or unless renewables are able to adequately replace it.
Since that will likely never happen, seeing as how wind and solar are highly unreliable and are, quite frankly, a farce in terms of maintaining an advanced economy, Germany is in for a heap of trouble in the coming days as it has now cut itself off at the knees on the energy front.
In the immediate moment after Russia invaded Ukraine, there was a spark of possible change uttered by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who suggested that perhaps Germany should change course and keep its nuclear reactors online after all. This did not last long, though, and onward the country went into an energy-less abyss.
Since Germany is largely controlled by the "Green" party at the current time, there is little chance that the country can secure any type of reliable energy future. What comes next for the country is sure to be ugly.
The collapse of the West is well underway. To keep up with the latest, visit Collapse.news.
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