[ad_1]
The nuclear power plant Isar in Lower Bavaria.
Photo:
Frank Hoermann / Sven Simon/Zuma Press
Leave it to Berlin to almost, sort of, do the only smart thing on energy after exhausting every other option. After months of anguished debate, Germany’s government on Monday finally announced it will extend its use of nuclear power to get the country through energy shortages this winter.
Economic Affairs and Climate Action Minister
Robert Habeck
says Germany may keep two of its three remaining nuclear reactors running until next spring if the country needs the power, which it almost certainly will. This isn’t a total solution to Germany’s energy crisis, since the three reactors currently generate only 6% of electricity. The bigger problem is industry, which requires large supplies of natural gas. But keeping nuclear at least frees up some gas that otherwise would have to be used for electricity generation.
Berlin has been fretting since February over whether to extend the lives of the country’s three remaining nuclear reactors. They were due to close at the end of this year under the 2011 nuclear phase-out begun by former Chancellor
Angela Merkel.
With fossil-fuel prices spiking and natural-gas deliveries from Russia dwindling amid
Vladimir Putin’s
war in Ukraine—and wind and solar incapable of powering an industrial economy—nuclear would seem like the obvious solution. But not in Germany, where cultural and political hostility to nuclear power runs deep. The issue is a particular challenge for Mr. Habeck, whose Green Party sprang from the 1970s antinuclear movement.
Even now, Green politics may explain Mr. Habeck’s decision to split the baby by extending only two of the three reactors, those in the southern states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. The reactor Mr. Habeck says he’ll close on schedule is in the northern state of Lower Saxony, where the Green party is competing for a spot in the state government in elections next month.
Mr. Habeck’s nuclear half-step may help his party in that state vote, but opinion polls suggest it could be a loser nationally. This year has seen a rapid shift in German public opinion regarding nuclear energy, with large majorities of voters now recognizing it’s an indispensable and low-carbon alternative and supporting its use potentially for years to come. Maybe one day politicians will finally catch up to the public’s wisdom.
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
[ad_2]
Source link
(This article is generated through the syndicated feeds, Financetin doesn’t own any part of this article)
