BERLIN (AP) — Growing concern about the impact of a potential Russian gas cut is fueling debate in Germany over whether the country should shut down its last three nuclear power plants as planned by the end of this year.
The door to some kind of extension seemed to open a crack after the Ministry of Economy announced in mid-July a new “stress test” on the security of electricity supply. It is supposed to take into account a more difficult scenario than a previous test, completed in May, which found that supplies were assured.
Since then, Russia has reduced the supply of natural gas. via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany at 20% capacity amid war tensions in Ukraine. He cited technical problems that Germany says are just an excuse for a political power game. Russia has recently accounted for around a third of Germany’s gas supply, and there are concerns that it could turn off the tap entirely.
The main opposition bloc in the Union has made increasingly frequent demands for an extension of the useful life of nuclear plants. Similar calls come from the smallest party in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition government, the pro-business Free Democrats.
“A lot of talk is about not shutting down safe and climate-friendly nuclear power plants, but if it is necessary to use them until 2024,” Finance Minister Christian Lindner, leader of the Free Democrats, told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper on Sunday. He called on Economy Minister Robert Habeck, responsible for energy, to stop using gas to generate electricity.
Calls to extend the use of nuclear power are uncomfortable for the other two ruling parties, Scholz’s centre-left Social Democrats and, in particular, Habeck’s environmental greens. Opposition to nuclear power is the cornerstone of the Greens’ identity; a social democratic-green government launched Germany’s exit from nuclear power two decades ago.
A government made up of then-Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right Union and the Free Democrats established the current form of the nuclear exit in 2011, shortly after Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster. It calls for the three reactors still in operation to be taken offline by the end of December.
Habeck has long argued that keeping those reactors running would be legally and technically complex and would do little to address the problems caused by gas shortages, arguing that natural gas is not so much a factor in generating electricity as it is in fueling industrial processes and providing heating.
“We have a heating problem or an industry problem, but not an electricity problem, at least not in general in the whole country,” he said in early July.
In the first quarter of this year, nuclear power plants accounted for 6% of Germany’s power generation and gas 13%. Lindner said that “we must work to ensure that an electricity crisis does not add to the gas crisis.”
Some Greens have indicated a degree of openness in recent days to allow one or more reactors to continue operating for a short period with their existing fuel rods, if the country faces a power supply emergency, though not for a longer extension. .
Others are not impressed by the idea. That “is also a lifetime extension” for the reactors that would require a change to existing law, “and we won’t touch that,” prominent Green lawmaker Juergen Trittin, Germany’s environment minister, said when the bill was first drafted. nuclear removal. The Tagesspiegel newspaper on Saturday.
Critics say that’s not enough anyway. Opposition leader Friedrich Merz has urged the government to immediately order new fuel rods for the remaining reactors. The main opposition legislator, Alexander Dobrindt, called for three reactors already closed. be reactivated and told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper that “in this situation, life extensions for nuclear power of at least five more years are conceivable.”
And Scholz’s position? Government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann said last week that she is awaiting the results of the “stress test”, which is expected in the next few weeks.
The government has already given the green light for utilities to turn on 10 idled coal-fired and six oil-fired power plants, and plans also to pave the way for idled lignite-fired power plants to restart. Another 11 coal-fired power plants scheduled to close in November will be allowed to continue operating.