Germany closes its last three nuclear reactors after 20 years

Germany It shut down its last three nuclear reactors on Saturday, capping more than 20 years of phasing out atomic power in the country, an old commitment sometimes misunderstood in a context of climate urgency and war in Ukraine.

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The Isar 2 (south-east), Neckarwestheim (south-west) and Emsland (north-west) plants were disconnected from the electricity grid before midnight, as planned, and the energy company RWE described the closure as “the end of an era”, according to a statement.

The largest economy in Europe thus opened a new energy chapter, faced with the challenge of dispensing with fossil fuels while managing the gas crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine.

The German government agreed to a postponement of several weeks with respect to the originally scheduled date of December 31, but without questioning the decision to turn the page on this type of energy.

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“The risks associated with the nuclear energy they are definitely unmanageable,” Environment Minister Steffi Lemke said this week. In fact, they worry large sectors of the population and cemented the environmental movement.

Greenpeace organized on Saturday at the foot of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin a farewell to the atom, symbolized by the remains of a dinosaur defeated by the anti-nuclear movement.

“Nuclear power belongs to history,” proclaimed the NGO.

In Munich, a “party for the exit from nuclear energy” brought together a few hundred people, AFPTV found.

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“Nuclear energyThank you,” the conservative daily FAZ wrote on Saturday, stressing the benefits that, in his opinion, it brought to Germany.

– Long process –

Following an initial decision by Berlin in the early 2000s to phase out atomic energy, former Chancellor Angela Merkel accelerated the process after the Fukushima catastrophe in 2011, a spectacular political turnaround. Since 2003, Germany has already closed 16 reactors.

the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, it could have put everything in question because Germany, deprived of Russian gas, feared the worst possible scenarios, from the risk of closing its factories to running out of heat.

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In the end, the winter passed without shortages and Russian gas was replaced by other suppliers, although some quarters still question the exit of atomic power.

– “Strategic mistake” –

Germany should “expand energy supply, not restrict it further” at the risk of shortages and high prices, lamented the president of the German chambers of commerce, Peter Adrian, in the Rheinische Post newspaper.

“This is a strategic mistake in a geopolitical environment that remains tense,” warned Bijan Djir-Sarai, secretary general of the liberal FDP party, a partner in the coalition government of Olaf Scholz and the environmentalists.

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The last three nuclear power plants only provided 6% of the energy produced in the country last year, while the nuclear energy represented 30.8% in 1997.

In parallel, the percentage of renewable energy in total production has increased to 46% in 2022, compared to less than 25% a decade earlier.

“After 20 years of energy transition, renewables now produce about one and a half times more electricity than nuclear power at its peak in Germany,” Simon Müller, director of the Agora Energiewende research center, told AFP. in energy transition.

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But in Germany, the European Union’s leading CO2 emitter, coal still accounts for a third of electricity production, with an 8% increase last year to make up for the absence of Russian gas.

Germany prefers to focus on its goal of covering 80% of its electricity needs with renewable energy by 2030 and close its coal plants by 2038 at the latest.

The country has to “step on the accelerator” in terms of onshore wind energy, warns Müller.

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According to Olaf Scholz, four to five wind turbines per day will have to be installed in the coming years to meet the needs.

Source: Elcomercio

jack

I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.