Germany closes its last three nuclear power plants
The German government is turning the page on nuclear energy on Saturday in a context marked by the war in Ukraine and the climate emergency.
The Neckarwestheim power station in southwestern Germany will be disconnected from the electricity grid on Saturday.
AFP/THOMAS KIENZLE
Commitment kept: Germany closes its last three nuclear reactors on Saturday, the culmination of a long-standing exit from atomic energy which remains controversial in the context of the climate emergency.
By midnight at the latest, the Isar 2 (south-east), Neckarwestheim (south-west) and Emsland (north-west) power stations will be disconnected from the electricity grid.
The German government had granted them a reprieve of a few weeks, compared to the judgment initially set for December 31, but without calling into question the decision to turn the page.
“Uncontrollable risks”
Europe’s largest economy will thus open a new chapter, after being challenged to wean itself off fossil fuels, while managing the gas crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine.
“The risks associated with nuclear energy are definitely out of control,” said Environment Minister Steffi Lemke this week. They worry large sections of the population and have cemented the environmental movement.
At the forefront of the anti-nuclear fight, the Greenpeace movement is organizing a farewell celebration at the foot of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin in the middle of the day. “At last, nuclear energy belongs to history! let’s make this April 15 a memorable day”, proclaims the NGO.
“Nuclear energy, thank you,” wrote the conservative daily FAZ on Saturday, emphasizing the benefits it has brought to the country.
Long process
The exit from nuclear power comes a long way. After an initial decision by Berlin in the early 2000s to gradually abandon the atom, ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel accelerated the process after the Fukushima disaster in 2011. Since 2003, Germany has already closed 16 reactors.
The invasion of Ukraine could have called everything into question. Deprived of Russian gas, the bulk of which Moscow has interrupted, Germany has found itself exposed to the darkest scenarios, from the risk of stopping its factories to that of being without heating.
The winter finally passed without a shortage, Russian gas was replaced by other suppliers, but the consensus around phasing out nuclear power has crumbled: in a recent poll for the public broadcaster ARD, 59% of people respondents believe that abandoning nuclear power in this context is not a good idea.
Germany must “expand the supply of energy and not restrict it further” in view of the risk of shortages and high prices, lamented the president of the German chambers of commerce, Peter Adrian, in the daily Rheinische Post.
“It’s a strategic mistake”
“It’s a strategic error, in a still tense geopolitical environment,” also said Bijan Djir-Sarai, secretary general of the liberal FDP party, yet a partner in the government coalition of Olaf Scholz and environmentalists.
The last three plants provided only 6% of the energy produced in the country last year, while nuclear represented 30.8% in 1997.
Meanwhile, the share of renewables in the production “mix” reached 46% in 2022, compared to less than 25% ten years earlier.
“After 20 years of energy transition, renewable energies now produce about one and a half times more electricity than nuclear power produced at its peak in Germany,” said Simon Müller, Germany director of the center. of studies Agora Energiewende.
Uncertainty
But in Germany, the largest CO2 emitter in the European Union, coal still accounts for a third of electricity production, with an 8% increase last year to compensate for the absence of Russian gas.
“The revival of fossil energy to compensate for the exit from nuclear power does not go in the direction of climate action” brought to the European level, reprimanded this week the French Ministry of Energy Transition.
France, with 56 reactors, remains the most nuclear country per capita. At the European level, there are sharp differences between Paris and Berlin on the role of the atom.
Germany prefers to focus on its goal of covering 80% of its electricity needs with renewables by 2030, while closing its coal-fired power plants by 2038 at the latest.
But here uncertainty reigns. “Where and how should renewable energy be produced? Everyone in this country agrees at least to say one thing: not at home”, underlines Saturday the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung.
AFP
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