Germany decides to abandon nuclear power by 2022

By Juergen Baetz
Associated Press

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, right, speaks before she receives a report of the government-mandated commission on the ethics of nuclear power by chairman Klaus Toepfer, left, in Berlin, Germany, Monday, May 30. Germany's coalition government agreed early Monday to shut down all the country's nuclear power plants by 2022, the environment minister said, making it the first major industrialized nation in the last quarter century to announce plans to go nuclear-free. The country has 17 reactors total. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

BERLIN—Germany’s government said Monday it will shut down all the country’s nuclear power plants by 2022. The decision, prompted by Japan’s nuclear disaster, will make Germany the first major industrialized nation to go nuclear-free in years.

It also completes a remarkable about-face for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right government, which only late last year pushed through a plan to extend the life span of the country’s 17 reactors — with the last scheduled to go offline around 2036.

But Merkel now says industrialized, technologically advanced Japan’s helplessness in the face of the Fukushima disaster made her rethink the risks of the technology.

Overcoming nuclear power within a decade will be a challenge for Europe’s biggest economy, but it will be feasible and ultimately give Germany a competitive advantage in the renewable energy era, Merkel said.

“As the first big industrialized nation, we can achieve such a transformation toward efficient and renewable energies, with all the opportunies that brings for exports, developing new technologies and jobs,” Merkel told reporters.

While Germany already was set to abandon nuclear energy eventually, the decision — which still requires parliamentary approval — dramatically speeds up that process.

“We don’t only want to renounce nuclear energy by 2022, we also want to reduce our Co2 emissions by 40 percent and double our share of renewable energies, from about 17 percent today to then 35 percent,” the chancellor said.

The country’s energy supply chain “needs a new architecture,” necessitating huge efforts in boosting renewable energies, efficiency gains and overhauling the electricity grid, Merkel said.

The cornerstones of Germany’s energy policy will be a safe and steady power supply that doesn’t rely on imports, affordable prices that don’t disadvantage industry or heavily burden consumers, and making sure that Germany’s carbon emissions keep diminishing, Merkel said.

The 2022 deadline is fixed, with no conditions attached that might allow a policy reverse, Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen added.

Germany’s seven oldest reactors, already taken off the grid pending safety inspections following the March catastrophe at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, will remain offline permanently, he said. The plants accounted for about 40 percent of the country’s nuclear power capacity.

The determination of Germany, the world’s fourth-largest economy, to gradually replace its nuclear power with renewable energy sources makes it stand out among the world’s major industrialized nations.

Among other Group of Eight nations, only Italy has abandoned nuclear power, which was voted down in a referendum after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster — leading it to shut down its three operating reactors.

Until March — before the seven reactors were taken offline — just under a quarter of Germany’s electricity was produced by nuclear power, about the same share as in the U.S.

Many Germans have vehemently opposed nuclear power since Chernobyl sent radioactivity over the country. Tens of thousands of people repeatedly took to the streets after Fukushima to urge the government to shut all reactors quickly.

A decade ago, a center-left government first penned a plan to abandon the technology for good by 2021 because of its inherent risks. But Merkel’s government last year amended the plan to extend the plants’ lifetime by an average of 12 years — a decision that became a political liability after Fukushima was hit by Japan’s March 11 earthquake and tsunami disaster.

“This is a great day of relief for all opponents of nuclear energy in Germany,” said Sigmar Gabriel, leader of the opposition Social Democrats. “Today, our political opponents are forced … to accept our policies.”

However, shutting down yet more nuclear reactors will require billions of euros (dollars) of investment in renewable energies, more natural gas power plants and an overhaul of the country’s electricity grid.

Germany, usually a net energy exporter, has at times had to import energy since March, with the seven old reactors shut down and others temporarily taken off the grid for regular maintenance work.

Still, the agency overseeing its electricity grid said Friday that the country will remain self-sufficient.

Environmental groups welcomed Berlin’s decision.

“The country is throwing its weight behind clean renewable energy to power its manufacturing base and other countries like Britain should take note,” said Robin Oakley, Greenpeace UK’s campaigns director.

Germany’s industry umbrella organization said the government must not allow the policy changes to lead to an unstable power supply or rising electricity prices, both of which would affect the country’s competitiveness.

“Transforming the energy sector is a hugely demanding project,” said Hans-Peter Keitel, the president of the Federation of German Industries.

He urged the government not to set the nuclear exit date of 2022 in stone, but to agree on a date that would be adjustable if problems arise in the coming years.

Germany’s decision broadly follows the conclusions of a government-mandated commission on the ethics of nuclear power, which delivered recommendations on how to abolish the technology within a decade on Saturday, and presented them Monday.

“Fukushima was a dramatic experience, seeing there that a high-technology nation can’t cope with such a catastrophe,” said Matthias Kleiner, the commission’s co-chairman. “Nuclear power is a technology with too many inherent risks to inflict it on us or our children.”

The shares of Germany’s four nuclear utility companies were down Monday. The biggest of them, E.ON AG and RWE AG, slipped by about 2 percent.

Neighboring Switzerland, where nuclear power produces 40 percent of electricity, also announced last week that it plans to shut down its reactors gradually once they reach their average lifespan of 50 years — which would mean taking the last plant off the grid in 2034.

When in Cebu City, please visit gregmelep.com for your retirement and real estate needs.

Geir Moulson in Berlin, Malin Rising in Stockholm, Colleen Barry in Milan and Cassandra Vinograd in London contributed reporting.

PH nuclear proponents abandon position

By Gil C. Cabacungan Jr., Jocelyn R. Uy, Tonette Orejas Philippine Daily Inquirer MANILA, Philippines—Proponents of nuclear power in the Philippines are reversing their position following partial meltdowns at two nuclear reactors in northeast Japan as a result of an 8.9-magnitude earthquake on Friday that spawned a massive tsunami. Albay Gov. Joey Salceda said he had favored nuclear energy before because of high power rates in the country and because he had believed that the risks of nuclear energy could be managed. “But now, the sheer fact that our country is situated in the Pacific Ring of Fire like Japan has settled the debate in my mind—no more to nuke plant,” Salceda said. Caloocan Bishop Deogracias Iñiguez said the situation in Japan vindicated Catholic bishops in opposing repeated proposals either to revive the mothballed nuclear power plant in Morong, Bataan, or to develop a plant elsewhere. “What is happening now in Japan confirmed our previous and present fears [about nuclear power plants],” Iñiguez said Sunday on the sidelines of the Church’s 25th celebration of National Migrants’ Day in Pasay City. President Benigno Aquino III’s mother, the late President Corazon Aquino, ordered the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) project mothballed in 1986 due to safety issues and irregularities that attended its funding and construction. Early last year, the Pangasinan provincial board endorsed a proposal by then Rep. Mark Cojuangco for the province to host two nuclear power plants. In pushing for the building of a nuclear plant in the province, Cojuangco said it would push Pangasinan’s progress and lower its electricity rates. Other nuclear power advocates made their voices heard last year after the country felt the initial symptoms of a power shortfall that could worsen in the next 50 years. Former Sen. Manuel Roxas II, the Aquino administration’s “troubleshooter,” expressed interest in tapping nuclear power for the country when he was campaigning for vice president in the May 2010 elections. Roxas said then that he would support studies on how the country could benefit from building a nuclear power plant and rehabilitating the BNPP. But Iñiguez said government officials must closely follow the developments in Japan, where a nuclear plant operator in Fukushima Daiichi was scrambling to avert meltdowns in other reactors. “They must study and intently follow what is going on with Japan’s nuclear plant now and consider what could happen if we have that kind of problem in our country,” he said. Thousands of residents living near the nuclear plant have been evacuated after the cooling system of one of the reactors was damaged by the temblor that spawned a tsunami that wiped out towns and killed hundreds of people in Japan’s northeastern coast. Rethink nuke proposal Eastern Samar Rep. Ben Evardone said the situation in Japan should force a rethinking of the nuclear proposal. “While there is a need to address the issue of power supply, the safety considerations should be paramount and should not be compromised,” he said. Negros Occidental Rep. Alfredo Benitez said the damage on the reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant would serve as a strong argument against the activation of the BNPP. Buhay party-list Rep. Irwin Tieng said the damage to the reactors had put into question the safety record of Japan’s nuclear plants. “We have to decide what to do with the BNPP as soon as possible. Our inability to offer cheap electricity has kept investors away but safety remains a priority issue that must be addressed,” Tieng said. Bagong Henerasyon party-list Rep. Bernadette Herrera-Dy said the earthquake tragedy in Japan proved to be the strongest argument against attempts by some sectors to revive the BNPP. Dy pointed that since the proponents of nuclear power had pointed to Japan as the model to prove the safety nuclear power, the explosion in one of its nuclear reactors showed that this assumption was false. She said Congress should put on the back burner all proposals for the revival of the BNPP. The House committee on energy is set to tackle a proposal by Pangasinan Rep. Kimi Cojuangco, wife of Mark, to conduct a validation process that would determine whether the Philippines should go nuclear in its search for additional power supply. Asked what Malacañang thought of proposals for the country to go nuclear, President Aquino’s deputy spokesperson, Abigail Valte, Sunday said it was better to look at proposals for alternative fuels that were “less controversial and with less opposition.” No to BNPP In the City of San Fernando in Pampanga, the Nuclear-Free Bataan Movement-Network (NFBM-Net) renewed calls to the President to reject proposals to revive the BNPP. Lawyer Dante Ilaya, NFBM-Net chair, said the administration and proponents of the rehabilitation of the nuclear plant should learn from the disaster that struck Japan. “The devastating earthquake in Japan should open our eyes to the reality that the Philippines is not a safe place for nuclear [power] plants,” Ilaya told the Inquirer by telephone. Ilaya is one of the first antinuclear activists who resisted the project that began in Morong, Bataan, in the 1970s. “Our country is often visited by earthquakes and we do not have the technology to prevent a nuclear disaster in case of a strong earthquake. Japan, despite being industrialized, turns out to be helpless against it,” he said in a statement. In the same statement, Msgr. Antonio Dumaual, NFBM-Net co-chair, urged the government to go for clean energy from renewable sources, such as solar power. Ilaya and Dumaual called on the government to dismantle the BNPP, to stop calls to rehabilitate and operate the facility and to address the power shortage in the country. In July 2009, Kelvin Rodolfo, a Filipino-American geologist, drummed up support for a detailed hazard assessment by Mahar Lagmay and Fernando Siringan on Mt. Natib where the BNPP was closely built. With a  report from Christine O. Avendaño. Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer