2023-04-15 18:41:34
berlinIt began as a movement of pacifists chaining themselves to fences. Five decades later, the fight against nuclear power in Germany is ending with Cold War overtones, just as it began, now that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a reminder of both the risks and the promises of nuclear power.
The three reactors still operating in Germany will be shut down this Saturday: Europe’s largest economy stops generating nuclear power. This just when the continent does not know if it will be able to guarantee enough energy to heat the houses and maintain the industry and at the same time achieve the ambitious climate goals that have been proposed.
Germany is an exception: Great Britain, Finland and France are multiplying nuclear power generation as a reliable source of electricity that does not emit much carbon into the atmosphere. Last year, Poland signed with Westinghouse Electric the construction of its first nuclear power plant, 300 kilometers from the border with Germany. The Biden administration supports building a new generation of smaller nuclear reactors as a tool for “massive decarbonization.” Some surveys suggest that even German citizens have doubts: in a survey commissioned by Bild, 52% oppose abandoning nuclear power, now that the country is overcoming its dependence on Russian gas.
Against the current
Robert Habeck, Minister of Economy and member of the Greens, insists that Germany can manage the nuclear exit. The country’s natural gas storage tanks are at half their capacity, a significant cushion with the cold season nearly over. And Germany has quickly built liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals that allow it to import gas via cargo ships rather than through Russian pipelines that once provided 55 percent of the fuel the country consumes.
In an interview with Funke Media Group, Habeck calls the new European nuclear power plants a “fiasco”, due to rising costs, construction delays and maintenance problems. “Our energy system will be structured differently: we will have 80% renewable energy by 2030.”
Nuclear energy has always been a hot topic in German politics. Pacifists, dismayed by the Cold War, fought against atomic energy since the 1970s. Some became founding members of the Greens, which now form part of the three-party coalition government. The anti-nuclear movement grew after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster created a cloud of nuclear fallout that reached West Germany, an episode that marked that generation.
Turns in the debate
In 2000, a left-wing government had approved a plan to abandon nuclear power, but conservative Angela Merkel withdrew it. Until the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster in Japan in 2011 hit public opinion again. And Merkel reversed course and enacted a law to shut down the country’s 17 nuclear reactors by the end of 2022.
The nuclear debate reignited last year when Germany faced its first winter without Russian gas. The government urged businesses and consumers to reduce energy consumption to avoid having to deal with rationing, and Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz extended the life of the last three plants until April 15, 2023 to ensure an energy enough at a reasonable price until spring.
Employer opposition
But with no end in sight for the war in Ukraine, employers are warning that now is not the time to cut off a relatively cheap source of electricity. “We must continue to do everything possible to expand energy supply and in no way restrict it further,” warns Peter Adrian, president of the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in a statement where he also warns that instability energy could endanger the country’s position as an industrial power.
And the climate emergency?
On Thursday, about 20 scientists and Nobel laureates from around the world sent a letter to Scholz urging him to reverse course and positioning nuclear power as a valuable alternative to greenhouse gas-emitting power plants. “Germany’s electricity grid remains one of the most carbon-intensive in Europe,” warns the RePlanet initiative.
The International Energy Agency said last year that nuclear power could be crucial to helping reduce carbon emissions in line with the goals of the Paris climate accord. And he stressed that it could also play a role in the development of carbon-free synthetic fuels known as green hydrogen.
But climate and energy experts predict that Germany’s nuclear shutdown will create only a slight temporary increase in its carbon emissions, offset in the coming years by increased solar and wind power. Andrzej Ancygier, from think tank Berlin-based Climate Analytics rejects the argument that nuclear power is more reliable than wind or solar. He remembers the droughts and high temperatures of last summer, which forced several European countries to close the reactors because the rivers that cooled them did not have enough flow or the water was not cold enough. “The planet is getting warmer, more dangerous and more unstable. We could end up in a bad place,” he said. “Security is an issue – we shouldn’t have forgotten about it.”
The Minister of the Environment, Steffi Lemke, adds that the war in Ukraine has already increased the risks of nuclear energy. “Ukraine’s nuclear power plants have become the target of Russia’s war,” he told German broadcaster Deutschlandfunk. “They were not designed for this situation.”
An expensive decision
The three German reactors to be shut down are safe and could continue to provide power at relatively low cost for many years, so the decision to shut them down is expensive, says Bruegel’s Georg Zachmann. At the same time, he explains that plants under construction in Britain, Finland and France are running over budget, which will make the energy they could provide up to three times more expensive. “I wouldn’t say that only Germans are crazy,” Zachmann said. “Shutting down existing nuclear power is expensive, and building new power is expensive.”
Copyright The New York Times
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