(Repeats Friday story, with no change)
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Germany to shut three remaining reactors by midnight on
Saturday
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Commercial nuclear sector in operation since 1961
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Berlin aims for renewable energy only by 2035
BERLIN, April 14 (Reuters) – Germany will pull the plug
on its last three nuclear power stations by Saturday, ending a
six-decade programme that spawned one of Europe’s strongest
protest movements but saw a brief reprieve due to the Ukraine
war.
The smoking towers of Isar II, Emsland and Neckarwestheim II
reactors were to shut forever by midnight on Saturday as Berlin
enacts its plan for fully-renewable electricity generation by
2035.
Following years of prevaricating, Germany pledged to quit
nuclear power definitively after Japan’s 2011 Fukushima disaster
sent radiation spewing into the air and terrifying the world.
But the final wind-down was delayed last summer to this year
after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine prompted Germany to halt
Russian fossil fuel imports. Prices soared and there were fears
of energy shortages around the world – but now Germany is
confident again about gas supplies and expansion of renewables.
Germany’s commercial nuclear sector began with the
commissioning of the Kahl reactor in 1961: eagerly promoted by
politicians but met with scepticism by companies.
Seven commercial plants joined the grid in the early years,
with the 1970s oil crisis helping public acceptance.
Expansion, however, was throttled to avoid harming the coal
sector, said Nicolas Wendler, a spokesperson for Germany’s
nuclear technology industry group KernD.
But by the 1990s more than a third of electricity in the
newly-reunited Germany came from 17 reactors.
The next decade, a coalition government including the Greens
– who grew out of the 1970s anti-nuclear movement – introduced a
law that would have led to a phase out of all reactors by about
2021.
Former Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative-led
governments went back-and-forth on that – until Fukushima.
‘ECONOMIC STUPIDITY’
Arnold Vaatz, a former lawmaker for Merkel’s Christian
Democrats (SPD), said the decision was also intended to sway a
state election in Baden Wuerttemberg where the issue was playing
into the hands of the Greens.
“I called it the biggest economic stupidity by the party
since (it was first in government it) 1949 and I’m sticking to
that,” Vaatz, one of only five conservative lawmakers who
opposed the exit bill, told Reuters.
The last three plants contributed only around 5% of
electricity production in Germany in the first three months of
the year, according to the economy ministry.
And nuclear power made up just 6% of Germany’s energy
production last year, compared to 44% from renewables, data by
the federal statistics office showed.
Still, two thirds of Germans favour extending the lifespan
of reactors or connecting old plants back to the grid, with only
28% backing the phase-out, a survey by the Forsa institute
showed earlier this week.
“I think this is certainly fed to a large extent by the fear
that the supply situation is simply not secure,” Forsa analyst
Peter Matuschek told Reuters.
The government says supply is guaranteed after the nuclear
phase-out and that Germany will still export electricity, citing
high gas storage levels, new liquid gas terminals on the north
coast and renewable energies expansion.
However, nuclear power proponents say Germany will have to
go back to nuclear eventually if it wants to phase out fossil
fuels and reach its goal of becoming greenhouse gas-neutral
across all sectors by 2045 as wind and solar energy will not
fully cover demand.
“By phasing out nuclear power, Germany is committing itself
to coal and gas because there is not always enough wind blowing
or sun shining,” said Rainer Klute, head of pro-nuclear
non-profit association Nuklearia.
With the end of the atomic power era, Germany has to find a
permanent repository for around 1,900 highly radioactive casks
of nuclear waste by 2031.
“There are still at least another 60 years ahead of us,
which we will need for the dismantling and the long-term safe
storage of the remnants,” said Wolfram Koenig, head of the
Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management.
The government also acknowledges that safety issues remain
given that neighbours France and Switzerland still depend
heavily on nuclear power.
“Radioactivity does not stop at borders,” said Inge Paulini,
head of Germany’s Radiation Protection Office, noting that seven
plants in neighbouring countries were less than 100 km (62.14
miles) from Germany.
(Reporting by Riham Alkousaa, Additional reporting by Maria
Martinez;
Editing by Friederike Heine and Andrew Cawthorne)
