The science is in:
The analysis of these two alternatives shows that Germany could have reached its climate gas emission target by achieving a 73% cut in emissions on top of the achievements in 2022 and simultaneously cut the spending in half compared to Energiewende. Thus, Germany should have adopted an energy policy based on keeping and expanding nuclear power.
I agree that there is a political problem. But there is also a problem with the document. I suspect that the building time in China does not take into account the time of the previous studies to select the location and after, or the participatory process of the local party or other political entities. The reasonable approach should have been to use the full timeframe of nuclear power plants (find a building emplacement, studies, ‘popular’ participation + building) in other countries with similar laws (European Union, UK, etc.). Maybe he wanted to push a pronuclear narrative?
That’s fair, there would likely be a lot more challenges around this within the scope of the political system in Germany that would lead to longer timelines. I do think it’s interesting to see how quickly this sort of stuff could be done in principle though. Given that we are already in a climate crisis, I find it depressing that we’re still playing political games with these sort of issues.