In 2017, Germany generated 37 percent of its electricity from non-carbon sources.[1] In pursuing the Energiewende, Germany will have invested $580 billion in renewable energy and storage by 2025.

If Germany had invested in nuclear instead, it could have built 46 1.6 GW EPR reactors at the $12.5 billion per reactor cost of the U.K.’s Hinkley Point C. German companies assisted with the design of the EPR and the reactor was explicitly planned to meet the strictest European regulations.

In this scenario, EP assumes that a Germany pursuing nuclear power would maintain the same level of nuclear generation as it produced annually before implementing its nuclear phase-out in 2011, about 133 TWh per year.

With 46 EPRs operating at 90 percent capacity factor, Germany could first eliminate all coal, gas, and biomass electricity, then make up for today’s 150 terawatt-hours per year of wind and solar from its renewables investment, all while exporting 100 terawatt-hours of electricity to its neighbors (double 2017’s actual exports). Finally, with the remaining 133 terawatt-hours, Germany could decarbonize its entire light vehicle fleet including all 45 million of its passenger vehicles.[2]