And just to be explicit, because I see people lie about this very often: this decision was made by the conservative party (CDU) while the Greens were not part of the government.

Incorrect. The decision was made by the SPD (leftist)+ Green coalition government in 2000, and was a condition by the Greens to enter the coalition (and then was adopted by an SPD chancellor who later took a job with Gazprom).

When the conservatives got back into power a decade later, they started to roll back the nuclear exit. But during the panic after the Japan tsunami this policy became unpopular so the conservatives reversed course and stuck with the disastrous Green policy.

But make no mistake, if the Greens did not make it into government, the Atomausstieg would never have happened.

Subjects to read for details:

* “Atomkonsens” 2000 and “Novellierung des Atomgesetzes” 2002, Kabinett Schröder,

* “Laufzeitverlängerung deutscher Kernkraftwerke”, 2010, Kabinett Merkel II

* “13. Gesetz zur Änderung des Atomgesetzes“ 2011 post-Fukushima, taking back the 2010 extensions

Merkel (CDU) pushed it after Fukushima, because "oh it's dangerous", which wasn't rational, but she knew people wanted it

It was agreed upon under completely different circumstances, namely a stable supply of Russian gas. I cannot believe that people do not get this into their head.

And after a decade of planning the shutdown, stopping contracts, deferring unneeded maintenance, ... you can't just say "actually, never mind, keep them running". The plant operators themselves said it wasn't really possible or only at extreme costs.

And the politicians loudly screaming about it are mostly from parties that are responsible for the "we'll have russian gas, it's fine" policy, and didn't use the decade+ of being in power beforehand to do anything about extending nuclear, but rather often also strongly insisted the shutdown had to be done. Right until the point they weren't in power anymore and they started to blame the Greens for the consequences of their own policies.

Sure, and the reactivation of old nuclear power stations would have been instant and cost nothing. Exactly what was needed in 2022. /s

Three nuclear reactors were still running in 2022, and shutting them down was not inevitable.

That none of the energy companies went "oh, yes, totally, give us a few billions of the special budgets for dealing with the consequences of the war and we'll happily keep them running" should tell you something about the viability of that.