The Green Economics Minister Robert Habeck is likely to cost the Germans dearly. But he is certainly not alone in his ideological stubbornness.
«Nuclear power? No thank you!” The Greens, founded in 1980, emerged from the anti-nuclear movement; the picture shows a demo from 1979.
Marc Felix Serrao, Editor-in-Chief of the NZZ in Germany.
You are reading an excerpt from the weekday newsletter “The Other View”, today by Marc Felix Serrao, Editor-in-Chief of the NZZ in Germany. Subscribe to the newsletter for free. Not resident in Germany? Benefit here.
At the beginning of this week, Robert Habeck proved to be a successful clientele politician and a poor economics minister. “Skillful”, “clever”, “probably the best way out of the dilemma”: With these warm words praises the left leading medium “TAZ” the decision of the Green Economics Minister to take all three remaining German nuclear power plants off the grid at the end of the year and to keep only two of them as “operational reserves” for a few months. Because even if Habeck allows the continued operation of the nuclear power plants under certain circumstances, he made it clear that nuclear energy in Germany is “definitely history” after this winter.
The “TAZ” is right on one point, which doesn’t happen often: Habeck is in trouble as a Green politician. On the one hand there are politicians from the CDU and CSU who are already blaming him for possible power supply bottlenecks in a few months’ time. On the other hand, he has to take into account a party that emerged 42 years ago from the anti-nuclear movement and still honors this legacy today. If Habeck had decided to leave the power plants on the grid, possibly even longer than April, then there would definitely have been a conflict with the green base and the German environmental movement.
The banal cost-benefit calculation
So much for the party-political internal perspective. However, the motives of the German Vice Chancellor do not do justice to the seriousness of the situation in which his country finds itself.
There is the banal cost-benefit calculation that economists like Veronika Grimm rightly point out: The operators of the nuclear power plants receive compensation from the state for their “emergency preparedness”, but without producing electricity for it. the latter should That’s the minister’s planonly happen “if there are fears that the other instruments will not be sufficient to avert a supply crisis”.
Grimm, who is energetically committed to a climate-friendly energy transition, described Habeck’s plan as “surprising”. “Nailed up” would also apply. The top priority of the Greens politician Habeck seems to be to be right with his no to nuclear energy – whatever the cost to the citizens. In this situation, Minister of Economics Habeck’s first priority should be to produce as much electricity as possible in one’s own country. The aim is not only to prevent blackouts, but also to counteract the rise in prices through a larger supply.
Habeck’s second error in reasoning concerns his time horizon. “In mid-April, the reserve will also be over,” says his ministry apodictically. Because the war in Ukraine and with it the energy crisis will be over? Because the planned floating terminals for liquid natural gas at the turn of the year after next are guaranteed to ensure that there will no longer be a shortage of gas? Because there will certainly be no delays in the planned expansion of renewable energies?
The exit from the exit as a German taboo
A third fallacy can also be mentioned. It concerns Habeck’s claim that nuclear energy is a “high-risk technology”, although the technologies involved are different and experts point out that so-called third-generation reactors are many times safer than older models. With them, a real, i.e. CO2-saving, energy transition could be achieved.
But to discuss this fundamental misconception would require a willingness to question the nuclear phase-out as such. And most of Habeck’s critics haven’t been able to do that either. No wonder, many of them supported the decision to leave at the time. Both the majority of leading German media and politicians, who currently sound like fuel elements that have become flesh, were staunch nuclear opponents.
The Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder, to name just one particularly agile example, indirectly threatened to resign as Bavarian Environment Minister in 2011 if the nuclear phase-out was not completed by this year at the very latest – i.e. 2022. “Japan is changing everything,” said the CSU strategist at the time. At that time there were still five nuclear reactors in Bavaria alone.
The Germans are not to be envied at the end of this summer. In the discussion about the right energy policy, their top politicians vacillate between ideology and fickle populism. And the energy crisis hasn’t really started yet.