Why can’t Germany break with nuclear power?
The pillar of steam can be seen rising into the sky from miles away, but finding the nuclear reactor isn’t so easy. The Emsland Nuclear Power Plant is hidden between woods and a chemical plant, quietly generating nuclear power for Germany just 10 kilometers (6.21 miles) south of the center of Lingen, a small town in the German regional state of Lower Germany. Saxony.
“Honestly, you forget about it,” Christine, a 44-year-old woman who grew up in the area, told DW on Lingen’s red-brick streets. “And you trust and hope that everything will be okay.”
The Emsland reactor is one of the last three nuclear power plants in Germany. All three were due to close for good on New Year’s Eve this year, completely ending nuclear power production in Germany. Then Russia began to wage war in Ukraine.
“I actually think of myself as anti-nuclear power,” said Christine. “But I have to admit you see the situation a little differently now.”
big policy change
Until recently, Russia was an important energy partner for Germany, supplying the country with most of its oil and natural gas. But tensions over the war in Ukraine have toppled that partnership. That left Germany scrambling for alternative supplies as the winter months settle in Europe and sent energy prices soaring.
Now the country is rethinking its nuclear elimination strategy. Today, Germany’s three nuclear reactors produce about 6% of the country’s electricity supply. But that wasn’t always the case: in the 1990s, 19 nuclear power plants produced about a third of Germany’s energy supply.
Then, in 1998, a new center-left government formed by the Social Democrats and the Greens party moved away from nuclear energy, a longtime goal of the Greens. Their prominence began to take off in the 1980s when they protested the dangers of nuclear weapons and nuclear power in the context of the Cold War. Construction of new nuclear power plants in Germany ended in 2002 and plans were made to phase out all existing facilities over the coming decades.
‘fascinating’ technology
But Germany’s dramatic affair with nuclear power was nowhere near over. In 2010, a coalition of conservative Christian Democrats and the liberal Free Democratic Party came to power and extended the use of nuclear energy for up to 14 years. But just a year later, meltdowns and explosions at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant caused Germany to reverse this policy. The government has returned to the nuclear phase-out plan by the end of 2022.
Until October of this year, when German Chancellor Olaf Scholz ordered the country’s three remaining nuclear power plants to continue operating until mid-April 2023, less than three months before their planned retirement.
Speaking to DW in the week of his own retirement from the industry, local Lingen and electrician Franz-Josef Thiering is not surprised that Germany is struggling to break away from nuclear power. Over coffee at his home, he shows a model of a uranium chip, given as a gift by the uranium fuel rod company where he worked. Encased in clear plastic is a thin, dark square about the size of a pinky nail. Two of these slivers can power an average German home for a year, says Thiering.
“It fascinates me,” he told DW. “That’s physics.”
Growing energy needs
It is foolish to discount the importance of electricity produced by Germany’s nuclear power plants as the country tries to make a transition to green energy, Thiering argued.
“We will need more electricity in the future. That’s a fact,” he said, thinking of things like electric cars and heat pumps. “And 6% can be sorely missed when there’s nothing new [to replace it]. We would be losing 6% when we really needed more.”
Many Germans seem to agree. While the majority of the public were in favor of phasing out nuclear power following the Fukushima disaster, in August of this year more than 80% were in favor of extending the lifespan of Germany’s existing nuclear reactors, according to a poll by German broadcaster ARD.
disaster fears
But fears of nuclear disaster and the unresolved question of what to do with radioactive nuclear waste still convince many that the extension is the wrong decision. Claudia Kemfert, professor of energy economics at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, points to neighboring France as an example, where they are highly dependent on nuclear energy.
“Half of new nuclear power plants [in France] they are offline and because they have security difficulties,” Kemfert told DW. “In Germany we have the same problem. Safety inspections have not been done for over 15 years. And we need to do them urgently to know if we have the same problem seen in France.”
She also points out that nuclear energy is a poor substitute for natural gas, which can also be used for heating, not just to produce electricity.
Source: DW
Lori Barajas is an accomplished journalist, known for her insightful and thought-provoking writing on economy. She currently works as a writer at 247 news reel. With a passion for understanding the economy, Lori’s writing delves deep into the financial issues that matter most, providing readers with a unique perspective on current events.