Germany pulled the plug on its last three nuclear power stations this weekend, 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 shut forever yesterday as Berlin enacted its plan for fully renewable electricity generation by 2035.
After years of prevaricating, Germany pledged to quit nuclear power definitively after Japan's 2011 Fukushima disaster sent radiation spewing into the air and terrified 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. Seven commercial plants joined the grid in the early years, with the 1970s oil crisis helping public acceptance.
Expansion was throttled to avoid harming the coal sector but by the 1990s more than a third of electricity in the newly reunited Germany came from 17 reactors.
In 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.
Arnold Vaatz, a former lawmaker for Merkel's Christian Democrats (SPD), said the decision to cancel nuclear 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 1949 and I'm sticking to that,” Vaatz, one of only five conservative lawmakers who opposed the exit bill, told Reuters.
Nuclear power made up just 6% of Germany's energy production last year, compared with 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 by 2045, because 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 the pronuclear nonprofit association Nuklearia.
Germany has to find a permanent repository for about 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 acknowledges safety issues remain given that neighbours France and Switzerland still depend heavily on nuclear power. — Reuters
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