Germany

Germany is a case study in today's dilemma regarding climate change. They lost the Russian natural gas and survived the winter avoiding a catastrophe by taking several steps which they would rather have not taken. First of all, Mother Nature blessed them with the warmest winter on record. Second they chose not to close down their last three remaining nuclear power plants. Third they started buying natural gas from anywhere around the world it was available. Fourth they reopened five lignite burning coal plants. Germany was not alone with coal as the worlds use of coal reached record highs in 2022. Now as if to slap fate in the face Germany has decided since they made it through the winter they will go ahead with their plans to close down the nuclear plants. Their backup plan to use when wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine is green hydrogen. They will produce hydrogen by electrolysis of water using electricity generated by wind and solar. The idea is to use the excess electricity produced when the wind blows and the sun shine to produce hydrogen and store it for when wind and solar cannot meet demand. This is a plan that will likely work but it would be much simpler if they would just build more nuclear plants and that way they wouldn't have to destroy the ground water in China and Africa in mining, processing and burying the materials needed to build wind and solar and then buy all of their windmills and solar panels from people who use slave and child labor.