Germany ends nuclear energy era as last reactors power down

Germany will shut down its last three nuclear reactors and abandon atomic energy on Saturday, even as it tries to wean itself off fossil fuels and manage an energy crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine.

While many Western countries are ramping up their investments in nuclear energy to reduce their emissions, Germany is ending the nuclear era prematurely.

After years of subterfuge, Germany vowed to give up nuclear energy permanently after Japan’s 2011 Fukushima disaster spewed radiation into the air and terrified the world.

But final winding down was postponed from last year to this year after Moscow’s invasion of Russia prompted Germany to halt Russian imports of fossil fuels. Prices skyrocketed and energy shortages around the world were feared, but now Germany has regained confidence in its gas supply and the expansion of renewables.

The departure decision was popular in a country with a strong anti-nuclear movement fueled by lingering fears of a Cold War conflict and nuclear disasters such as Chernobyl in Ukraine.

“The risks of nuclear power are ultimately unmanageable,” said Environment Minister Steffi Lemke, who this week made a pilgrimage to the ill-fated Japanese plant ahead of a G7 meeting in the country.

But the challenge posed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which ended cheap gas imports, and the need to cut emissions quickly has increased calls in Germany to delay its withdrawal from nuclear power.

Greenpeace, at the heart of the anti-nuclear movement, organized a celebratory party at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin to mark the occasion.

“At last, nuclear energy belongs to history! Let’s make April 15 a memorable day.

In contrast, the conservative daily FAZ headlined its Saturday edition “Thanks, Nuclear Power” while listing the benefits nuclear power had brought to the country over the years.

‘An error’

Originally scheduled for late 2022, Germany’s nuclear exit had already been postponed once.

As Russian gas supplies dwindled last year, officials in Berlin continued to struggle to find a way to keep the lights on, with a short extension agreed until mid-April.

Germany, the largest emitter in the European Union, has also powered some of its mothballed coal-fired power plants to close the potential gap created by gas.

The challenging energy situation had increased calls in our own country to postpone the exit from nuclear energy.

Germany had to “expand not further restrict energy supplies” in the face of potential shortages and high prices, the chairman of the German Chambers of Commerce, Peter Adrian, told the Rheinische Post.

Bavaria’s conservative leader Markus Soeden, meanwhile, told the Focus Online website that he wanted the plants to remain online and three more to be kept “in reserve”.

Outside observers are similarly irked by Germany’s push to abandon nuclear power while ramping up coal use, with climate activist Greta Thunberg in October dismissing the move as “a mistake”.

At the Isar 2 complex in Bavaria, technicians will gradually shut down the reactor from 10 p.m. (8 p.m. GMT) on Saturday, disconnecting it from the power grid for good.

“It will be a very moving moment for colleagues to shut down the power plant for the last time,” said Guido Knott, CEO of PreussenElektra, which operated Isar 2, a few hours before the deadline.

By the end of the day, the operators of the other two facilities, in the north of Emsland and the southwest of Neckarwestheim, will also have taken their facilities offline.

The last three plants supplied only 6 percent of Germany’s energy last year, compared to 30.8 percent of all nuclear power plants in 1997.

“Sooner or later” the reactors will be decommissioned, Economy Minister Robert Habeck told the Funke group before the planned decommissioning, brushing aside the idea of ​​an extension.

The government has the energy situation “under control,” Habeck assured, after replenishing gas supplies and building new infrastructure for liquefied natural gas imports to close the gap left by Russian supplies.

Instead, the minister from the Green Party, which was founded out of opposition to nuclear energy, is aiming for Germany to produce 80 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2030.

To that end, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has called for the installation of “four to five wind turbines a day” over the next few years — a tall order considering only 551 were installed last year.