German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he would extend the operation of Germany’s last three nuclear power plants, in what was described as a snub by the Greens in his coalition government.
Against the backdrop of an unprecedented energy crisis, the government has so far agreed to maintain two of the three power stations beyond the end of 2022, the date originally planned for a nuclear giving up.
A letter from Scholz to the government asks the ministries of economy, environment and finance to put in place the legal framework to keep the country’s three nuclear power plants – Isar 2, Neckarwestheim 2 and Emsland – operational until at the end of April 15, 2023.
The plant in Emsland, in the north of the country, is at the heart of a tug of war within the ruling coalition of the Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals, who are torn over the solutions to be found in the energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine.
The chancellor finally moved on Monday as Europe’s biggest economy quickly tries to reduce its dependence on Russian energy imports, especially gas. Nuclear power currently produces 6% of Germany’s net electricity.
Justice Minister Marco Buschmann and Finance Minister Christian Lindner of the centrist Free Democratic Party (FDP) welcomed Scholz’s decision on Twitter as “common sense” and in the “vital interest” of the country.
But the decision was a further blow to Germany’s economy minister, the Green Robert Habeck, whose rift with Lindner has become increasingly apparent.
The Bild tabloid said Scholz’s decision was a “slap in the face” for Habeck, although Environment Minister Steffi Lemke – also from the Greens – said it was just a nuclear failure. to quit. He tweeted to say there would be no “life extension” of the plants beyond mid-April.
Greenpeace called Scholz’s decision “irresponsible”. “Extending the life of nuclear power plants exposes us all to an unreasonable risk,” said Greenpeace Germany executive director Martin Kaiser.
Initially, Germany, where a large part of the population is against nuclear energy, plans to close the last three operating nuclear reactors by the end of 2022.
But Olaf Scholz’s government reversed this decision after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and decided in September to extend two of the three remaining plants until spring 2023, blaming France for the poor electricity grid.
Twenty of France’s 56 reactors are out of service due to maintenance or corrosion problems. French state energy company EDF has promised to restart it gradually by February 2023.
The German Liberals want to go further in the spring of 2023 and keep the three plants in operation longer, while the Greens are historically deeply anti-nuclear.
Faced with the threat of energy shortages this winter, the German government has decided to increase its use of coal. The operation of many coal-fired power stations has been extended until the spring of 2024, although it has set its own target to abandon the use of coal by 2030.
The Swedish activist Greta Thunberg said in a recent interview on German television that it is better to continue using the existing nuclear plants in Germany than to switch to coal.
The timetable for phasing out nuclear power was decided by Angela Merkel after the Fukushima disaster in Japan in 2011.
