Belgium (Brussels Morning Newspaper) Making a difficult political choice, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz decided to keep the country’s remaining three nuclear power plants running until mid-April, in a move seen as a compromise between his government’s coalition partners.
Germany was set to shutter its remaining nuclear power plants by the end of this year – a decision made more than a decade ago by Scholz’s predecessor Angela Merkel in the wake of Japan’s Fukushima disaster.
Facing public backlash against nuclear power, Merkel had set Germany on course to become nuclear-free, gradually phasing out nuclear power in the country’s energy mix, despite the critics who argued that nuclear power could help Germany go carbon neutral sooner than by relying on natural gas and coal to plug the gaps in renewable energy production.
With the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, as Berlin turned away from Moscow as a source of cheap natural gas, Germany has been hit with a harsh reality that it will have to depend more on coal for its energy production, setting back its carbon neutrality plans, while rising energy prices and grid stability might necessitate further measures.
Nuclear or coal
The German Free Democrats (FDP) clashed with the Greens – both members of the Social Democrats-led (SPD) ruling coalition – on whether to extend the life of the remaining three nuclear power plants beyond their planned retirement date.
FDP’s leader, Finance Minister Christian Lindner argued that Germany needs all the energy production capacity it can muster, while the Greens’ leader, Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Robert Habeck remained opposed to keeping nuclear plants running, even while acknowledging this could lead to more coal consumption.
On Friday, the Greens agreed with the plan to extend the life of two of the plants by mid-April, but they wanted to shut down the third – in the northwestern Emsland district – by the end of the year, as planned. The FDP, on the other hand, called for all three plants to remain open until 2024.
On Monday, Scholz announced his decision to keep all three plants operating until mid-April, as a sort of compromise between the two junior parties. Despite his intent, the Greens see the decision more as a necessary concession, while the FDP sees it as their political victory.
Efficiency plans
The three plants together currently produce some 6% of Germany’s total electricity, but two of them will have to be shut down for several weeks before end of year to reconfigure their fuel rods, as no plans were made to procure new ones for the plants.
While all three plants could stretch out their remaining fuel rods to last until mid-April, E.ON’s Isar 2 plant could in theory stretch their lifespan up to August next year, if needed. To continue producing electricity after those dates, the plants would need fresh fuel rods.
As fuel rods take up to a year to arrive once ordered, the time has already run out to reach a decision to keep the plants operating for longer, as even if Berlin wanted to keep them they would have to power down and await fresh fuel after April.
Scholz called on the finance, economy and environmental ministries to prepare a legal basis for the plants to remain open until 15 April next year. Coupled with this request, the Chancellor also instructed the ministries to prepare an “ambitious” plan to increase energy efficiency, and to make a binding agreement to phase out coal use by 2030 at the latest.
