Ok, you got me on my lack of precision and missing sources. Estimates like “billions of Euros” and “hundreds of tons” are horribly vague and not a proper base for discussion.
To walk back my reputation I want to add this link: https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-g-n/germany.aspx which provides a lot of hard facts. According to this report Germany hast to manage 11.500 metric tons of nuclear fuel. There’s a state fund of 23.6 billion € for managing the waste. Also the energy companies have put back 38 billion € to build back the German reactors. “Millions of years” was plain wrong, spent nuclear fuel has half-lives as high as 24,000 years, which is not nothing but something to do math with.
Where it is difficult to do the math is the total cost of nuclear power in Germany. There are about 187 Billion € of state subsidies that some sources factor in and some don’t. The risk of minor and major accidents and how to account for them is debated heavily. Same goes for renewables, where some sources factor in external costs for manufacturing, land and network, some don’t. It’s a mess and I no longer wonder why there are so many stark opinions pro and against nuclear power.
It would make sense from an economical standpoint to let the running reactors run long term and rather refurbish older ones instead of building new power plants. To shut down the German reactors early has been a political decision fueled by the political problems around the waste and fear of accidents, not a scientific one. Same goes for the discussion about a nuclear renaissance, which could simply be made on a political basis. But if people want to pay a price (like higher energy prices) to reduce risk, all economical discussion will fall short. The war in Ukraine will shift public opinion towards nuclear, just because the fossils from Russia have become a political burden especially in Germany. But also the public opinion on big infrastructure projects have become very strained after the disastrous Berlin airport project.
It’s not about the cost. It’s about public opinion and I’m not looking forward to the debate. Ugh.
Germany has no functioning long-term repository for high-level nuclear waste. The search for a permanent site has dragged on for decades. Because Germany is densely populated, there are no remote areas where waste could be stored far from people. Every proposed site triggers fierce local resistance (“Not in my backyard”). Temporary storage in mine shafts proved to be unreliable and very expensive to maintain. When Germany decided on the nuclear phase-out, the government negotiated a one-off payment from the nuclear plant operators (E.ON, RWE, EnBW, Vattenfall). In exchange, the operators were freed from their long-term liability for nuclear waste storage. Future costs are now on taxpayers.