Germany has just announced the implementation of a new investment which should allow it to relaunch its nuclear sector.
With the war in Ukraine and the end of affordable Russian gas, Germany must urgently find new sources of energy to power its industrial fabric. And to do this, all ideas are good, even when it involves denying oneself.
Nuclear power isn’t so bad after all
Energy, and fast! A slogan that is common in Germany, where many companies are considering relocating their production, and some of which have already taken the plunge to join North America and its more attractive energy costs. We are therefore not surprised to see the government return to previous positions, which seemed set in stone.
Berlin has just announced the establishment of a 1 billion euro program aimed at supporting research in the energy sector over the next 5 years. A first part of this envelope, of 370 million euros, has been allocated to three research centers.
A competitor to ITER?
So, after having closed its entire nuclear fleet after Fukushima, an operation completed last April, is Germany giving up? Not exactly, because instead of returning to nuclear fission, a technology used in the French nuclear fleet, across the Rhine, we are directly targeting nuclear fusion. This technology has not yet been mastered by any nation, despite major projects like the one located in the south of France, ITER, or the more successful one, the American National Ignition Facility.
If Germany is looking more towards fusion, it is because unlike fission, it does not produce nuclear waste. In addition, the continent’s largest economic power wants to favor the laser approach to development, unlike the magnetic technologies of ITER. “ Fusion is a huge chance to solve all our energy problems », enthused Federal Research Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger, a liberal who won her case over the Greens within the government coalition.
Source : The echoes
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