The Ukraine war is forcing Germany to say goodbye to cheap Russian gas as a “bridging technology”. This has provoked debates about extending the lifetime of nuclear power plants.
Should Germany let nuclear power plants run longer? The Ukraine war reignited a debate that was considered closed.
«Nuclear energy has no future in Germany. Point.” This sentence does not come from a top Green politician. Leo Birnbaum, head of the German energy company E.On, said it recently in a newspaper Interview with the “Financial Times”. Is this the end of the debate after a temporary renaissance of nuclear power was discussed in the initial shock of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine?
The last of their kind
E.On operates through its subsidiary PreussenElektra Isar 2 near Munich, one of the last three nuclear power plants (AKW) still in operation in Germany. The other two are Emsland (operated by RWE) and Neckarwestheim 2 (EnBW). All three are scheduled to go offline at the end of the year. Three more nuclear power plants were shut down at the end of 2021: Brokdorf, Grohnde (both PreussenElektra) and Gundremmingen C (RWE).
The German phase-out of nuclear power has had several twists and turns: it was first decided in 2002 under a red-green government, corrected in 2010 by a black-yellow coalition (“Merkel II”) by extending the service life, and again by the same coalition in 2011 after the reactor accident in Fukushima accelerated and legally terminated at the end of 2022. At the same time, Germany is aiming to phase out coal-fired power generation by 2038 at the latest, but if possible as early as 2030.
This energy transition is also based on the idea of using natural gas as a bridging technology – for the transitional period until renewable energies and so-called green hydrogen are ramped up. But as late as 2021, Germany obtained around 55 percent of the natural gas it consumed cheaply from Russia. In the meantime, the share has fallen to around 40 percent and the federal government wants to become completely independent of Russian gas as quickly as possible in the light of the Ukraine war.
The ministries are against it
Because it takes time, Berlin has so far rejected an embargo on Russian gas, but Moscow could also impose a supply freeze. The next winter is considered to be particularly tricky, when consumption increases seasonally, but the switch to other gas suppliers and other energy sources has not been completed.
So why not let the remaining nuclear power plants run longer, as Belgium has already announced? The Green Economics Minister Robert Habeck explained first, one examines all options «without taboos». But in his party, whose roots are in the anti-nuclear movement, this met with resistance. And on March 8 stopped Joint report by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Ministry of the Environment, which is also led by the Greens firmly: “As a result of weighing up the benefits and risks, an extension of the service life of the three remaining nuclear power plants is not recommended, even in view of the current gas crisis.”
How did the ministries come to this conclusion? It must be acknowledged that nuclear power can only replace gas in electricity generation, not in heating or in industrial processes. That’s why it only covered 6 percent of Germany’s primary energy consumption last year.
According to the Federal Statistical Office, nuclear energy contributed around 13 percent to domestic electricity generation in 2021. It thus had a share similar to that of gas-fired power plants. However, at that time there were still six nuclear power plants connected to the grid. This year there are only three, which is why the share of electricity production is likely to fall to around 5 percent. Coal and wind power were the largest contributors in 2021, with unfavorable weather conditions leading to a shift away from wind.
Against this background, the report of the ministries pointed out that the nuclear power plants would primarily replace electricity from coal-fired power plants and would therefore make little contribution to increasing independence from Russia in the current gas crisis. Because of the high gas prices, gas-fired power plants are currently in last place in the order of use of power plants and are only rarely used.
Three options tested
Above all, Habeck likes to cite the following factors from the report, which examined three options:
- Stretching operation over the winter of 2022/23: Since the three remaining nuclear power plants have long been preparing to shut down by the end of the year, according to the ministries’ test report, the fuel elements in the plants will then have been burned up. One could go into the so-called stretching operation: If less electricity is produced in the summer of 2022, the fuel elements will be burned more slowly and can still supply electricity in the first quarter of 2023. However, the report argues that the net effect would be zero since no more electricity would be produced overall.
- Service life extension with new fuel elements: In order to be able to operate the nuclear power plants for three to eight years longer, they would have to be supplied with new fuel elements. According to the report, even in the best-case scenario, these could not be used before summer/autumn 2023. Until then, the nuclear power plants could only produce electricity when stretched. In addition, according to international standards, a security check is required every ten years. Such should have been presented in 2019, but it was not done because of the impending exit. In the event of continued operation, such a test would be “absolutely necessary”, but this is normally a “process that lasts for years”. Therefore, continued operation would only be possible if the scope and depth of the test were reduced or extensive retrofitting measures that would be necessary in the course of the test or due to the latest state of technology and science were dispensed with.
- Recommissioning of the nuclear power plants that were shut down at the end of 2021. Although dismantling of these plants has not yet begun, the report sees major regulatory and constitutional hurdles to putting them back into operation.
The association is pressing
The validity of these arguments is debatable. The industry association Kerntechnik Deutschland (KernD) has them picked up in a comment. From his point of view, it is possible to generate electricity for a few months longer with existing fuel elements, to save fuel in the summer of 2022 if there is a surplus of electricity from wind and sun, and to have a certain number of new fuel elements available as early as winter 2022/23. KernD also explained that a security check that is now beginning could be carried out in a staggered manner and that continued operation would be possible without compromising the security level.
KernD advertised in a open letter to Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz for continued operation of the nuclear power plants and reiterated on April 7, it is “in the event of a crisis like this one irresponsible to simply switch off these power plants that are on the grid”. This is grist to the mill of some Union politicians, above all the Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) as well as new the CDU chairman Friedrich Merz, and parts of the FDP that are pushing for longer maturities. The discussion continues to simmer, but an about-face would be a crucial test, especially for the Greens as the governing party.
The industry refuses
Interestingly enough, continued operation – and in deviation from KernD – is hardly supported by directly affected energy companies that operate the last nuclear power plants. They expressed skepticism at the very beginning – with nuances between the individual companies – but said they were willing to talk when Habeck announced a review. After the rejection by the two ministries, they apparently returned to their initial skepticism. Energy industry circles say that continued operation is technically possible and that the other hurdles can also be overcome. But it is also true that the potential energy yield is ultimately too low.
The corporations have, it seems, prepared for the phase-out of nuclear power – for which they are being compensated. They don’t want an overheated, endless debate because they assume that nuclear power doesn’t stand a political chance in Germany after all. True, according to the recent Survey by the Institute for Demoscopy Allensbach The opinion of the population has recently changed: in contrast to a survey shortly before the start of the war, 57 percent of those surveyed in March were in favor of leaving the last nuclear power plants on the grid beyond the end of the year. Only 25 percent supported a timely shutdown.
But such majorities are volatile and there is little sign of a change of heart on the part of the federal government. With that, the E.On boss Birnbaum may have actually said a final word with the sentence quoted at the beginning.
You can contact the Berlin business correspondent René Höltschi Twitter follow.