Sunday, January 02, 2022
“Absolutely uneconomical”
EU push for nuclear power triggers sharp criticism
Climate-friendly nuclear power? The EU Commission can imagine this classification. There is also sharp criticism from Germany: Without massive subsidies, new nuclear power plants cannot be financed, it is said. The left is even calling for legal action. However, there is also approval from Italy.
The move by the European Commission to classify investments in new nuclear power plants as green, i.e. climate-friendly, has sparked a debate about a renaissance of nuclear power. Initially, there was mainly criticism from Germany. The deputy leader of the SPD parliamentary group, Matthias Miersch, spoke out against investments in new nuclear power plants in the EU. “Germany should exhaust all possibilities to prevent this technology from being promoted at European level,” he told the German Press Agency in Berlin.
“Nuclear power is not sustainable and absolutely uneconomical,” said Miersch. Unfortunately, parts of the climate movement are also far too uncritical towards this technology. “New nuclear power plant projects cannot be financed at all without massive subsidies.” This also applies to the follow-up costs of the final storage, said the SPD politician. The future should only belong to renewables – especially at EU level. “If nuclear power were to be subsidized alongside CO2 pricing, the result would be a massive distortion of competition. Rather, we need a debate on the analogous pricing of nuclear power.”
The proposal from Brussels provides that investments planned in France in new nuclear power plants in particular can be classified as green if the plants meet the latest standards and a specific plan for the radioactive waste is presented. Investments in new gas-fired power plants should also be able to be classified as green temporarily, especially at Germany’s request.
Left: Germany should also sue
Austria has already announced that it will take legal action against the classification of new nuclear power plants. Climate protection minister Leonore Gewessler from the Austrian Greens announced on Twitter: “If these plans are implemented in this way, we will sue”. The left in the German Bundestag calls on the federal government to join in. “Germany should support Austria’s legal action against the classification of nuclear power as sustainable and climate-friendly,” demanded the group’s Europe expert, Andrej Hunko, in Berlin. “A simple non-approval in the EU Council is not enough and would de facto waved the Commission proposal through because a qualified majority is necessary there, which is currently not achievable.”
Federal Minister of Economics and Greens boss Robert Habeck had already told the German Press Agency on Saturday: “We do not see approval of the new proposals of the EU Commission.” It is questionable “whether this greenwashing will even find acceptance on the financial market”. Federal Development Minister Svenja Schulze also opposed the EU Commission’s proposal. “To classify nuclear power as sustainable is already wrong in the EU – on a world scale it is absurd,” said the SPD politician of the German press agency. “Nuclear power is too risky, too expensive and too slow to help the world with climate protection. It will therefore never make up more than the current five percent of the global energy mix.”
With the draft paper that has now become known, the EU Commission is starting a two-week consultation process with the member states. She will then present the final proposal in mid-January. The Council of Member States and the EU Parliament then have a right of veto. Individual member states alone cannot stop the process.
The project is supported by France, where President Emmanuel Macron believes nuclear energy is essential so that his country and the EU can become climate neutral by 2050, as planned. Poland and other eastern EU states also want to build new nuclear power plants. The Greens involved in the federal government strongly reject the plan. Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the SPD had recently confirmed that the last nuclear power plant in Germany would be shut down in 2022. Only at the turn of the year three nuclear power plants went offline. A further three systems are now still in operation; they are to be shut down at the end of the year.
At the end of December, the designated CDU chairman Friedrich Merz showed understanding for France’s attempt to have nuclear power declared green electricity by the EU Commission. “Nuclear power does not generate any CO2, and that alone is why France is so much further ahead in avoiding CO2 than we are,” he told the editorial network Germany (RND). “The EU Commission will not only orient itself on the German way.”
Salvini wants to build nuclear power plants
The environmental protection organization WWF also sharply criticized the EU Commission’s proposal. “Close your eyes and through, that seems to be the motto of the EU Commission for nuclear power and natural gas,” commented Matthias Kopp, Head of Sustainable Finance at WWF Germany, on the move. After months of delays, the Commission gave the expert groups of the member states only eight working days to deal with the relevant draft. Scientists, citizens and financial institutions are excluded from the “mini-consultation”, criticized the WWF expert.
The Italian right-wing populist Matteo Salvini from the Lega, on the other hand, welcomed the news from Brussels and wants to build nuclear power plants again in Italy. The country must not stand still, the politician tweeted: “The Lega is ready to collect signatures for a referendum that will lead our country into a future that is energetically independent, safe and clean.” Italy had already withdrawn from nuclear energy after the Chernobyl reactor disaster at the end of the 1980s. The country gets some of its electricity from abroad, nuclear power can be included. A return to nuclear energy was rejected in a referendum in 2011.
Other parties like the Five Stars, like the Lega in the multi-party government of Prime Minister Mario Draghi, reject nuclear power. The recent drastic increases in electricity and gas prices are one of the most pressing political issues in Italy. Prime Minister Draghi is trying to find concession from the energy companies and a solution to the problem. Most recently, he also discussed this with Salvini.