Coverage of the Energiewende is almost uniformly negative in the United States. The Atlantic article is just another instance of that PR, as you call it. It's neither particularly well researched (Merkel didn't decide the nuclear phase-out that was put into law already a decade earlier), nor well reasoned (they claim that the decline of nuclear power has not been covered by renewables, based on the observation that coal still is around?). Germany is produced way less electricity from coal in 2021 when that article was published than in 2001 when their nuclear power peaked, and the power output from wind and solar increased more (+106 TWh) than by what nulcear declined (-102 TWh). Power from coal declined even more (-123 TWh).

> The difference was the idiotic decision by Germany to drop nuclear power.

No, the difference is that the UK replaced their coal burning by gas. Similar to the US, however it is further advanced in replacing that gas burning with wind power than the US. Nuclear power output in the UK is also declining. It peaked in 1998 at nearly 100 TWh. In 2021, they produced less than 47 TWh and last year EDF closed Hunterston B (before the Russian invasion) and Hinkley Point B (in August).

>Despite Germany’s PR, their pre-Ukraine emissions reductions have far more to do with demographic decline than alternative energy.

Source? German population isn't really declining, so that seems to be a pretty bad analysis.

>Also, Germany counts electricity generation from lignite as “renewable” as long as it is backstopping solar.

No, it doesn't?

>https://youtu.be/AYu9rliT3F4

That video doesn't seem to care much about facts. France more populous than Germany? Germany gets more than a third of its power from wind+solar alone, not "just 10%". The government states estimated overall costs of 500 billion for the energy transition until 2050. The highest estimate I know of talks about 500 billion until 2025. Where did he pull the 2 trillion from?

Lignite burning in Germany has gone up this year, that's true, it increased by about 5%, but it's not like it would be a new development that they lean heavily on coal burning. They generated 140 TWh from lignite in 2002 when they were close to their nuclear power output compared to 105 TWh in 2022.

It's total nonsense, that only solar power is on the grid, when the sun shines, there just is too little solar power installed yet for that in Germany.

Here is the power production in June 2022. Notice that there isn't just solar+wind on the grid at any point. The claim that the emissions from that coal burning isn't accounted for in the carbon emission figures seems just total fabrication.