Debate about maturities
Scheuer demands the construction of three new nuclear power plants
08/27/2022 02:36 am
In view of the fears that Germany could experience an energy shortage in winter, the CSU in particular is pushing for nuclear power to be continued. Ex-Transport Minister Scheuer is now even calling for the construction of three new nuclear power plants.
Former transport minister Andreas Scheuer has proposed building new nuclear power plants amid the energy crisis. “My formula is three plus three plus three: three nuclear power plants have to run longer, three have to be reactivated and three have to be built from scratch,” the CSU politician told the “Welt am Sonntag”. “We need a reliable supply of energy to the economy, otherwise the deindustrialization of Germany will progress.”
Germany has become the world’s supplicant and is getting deliveries for new gas in Qatar, Canada and Norway. Germany is stuck in the ideological trap of the Greens, said Scheuer. Because of the energy crisis, which has worsened as a result of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, there has been a debate for months as to whether the three remaining nuclear power plants in Germany should continue to run longer than the current legal situation provides.
The operating license for the Isar 2 nuclear reactor in Bavaria should actually expire at the end of the year, as should the other two remaining reactors, Emsland in Lower Saxony and Neckarwestheim 2 in Baden-Württemberg. Together they make up six percent of the German electricity mix. Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz believes longer lifetimes for nuclear power plants are possible. The SPD chairwoman Saskia Esken had said, however, that the phase-out of nuclear energy would not be revised and justified this, among other things, with high costs and open questions about nuclear waste disposal.
In 2011, the then CDU-led federal government under Chancellor Angela Merkel decided to gradually phase out nuclear energy for Germany after the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan. In the Union, the nuclear phase-out was very controversial for many years before the debate recently flared up again. Critics of nuclear power not only point to the unresolved issue of final storage and the possibility of a nuclear catastrophe – they also question the reliability of the reactors. For example, only about half of the more than 50 French nuclear power plants are connected to the grid.