I saw an article in Der Spiegel back in 1998, that said that the major party with the most votes in the recent election (I think it was the SPD) had had to form a coalition government with the Green Party. One of the provisions of the coalition arrangement was that ALL nuke plants in Germany would be shut down. I don’t remember the details of the article. But now that it’s six years on, I’m wondering, what has been the outcome of that? Have the nuke plants been shut down? How is the power they provided being replaced?
They really decided to abandon nuclear power. However only one plant (IIRC) has been shut down so far. Nuclear plants provide a large percentage of German electricity that shutting down them all at short notice was never an option. The government favored a shutdown as soon as possible. The energy providers threatened to sue for gigantic damages because to them the plants were of course long-term investments - several had been completed in the late 80s and were intended to operate for decades.
Finally a compromise was reached in 2002:
[ul]
[li]Abandoning nuclear power is finalized.[/li][li]No new plants will be licensed.[/li][li]Each plant is allocated a certain output that can be generated before the plant is shut down.[/li][li]However this output can be transferred between plants. This way older and less efficient plants will be shut down faster.[/li][li]Various details on security, liability and disposal of nuclear waste were regulated.[/li][/ul]
The last shutdown is estimated to happen some time after 2020.
Thanks for responding to this. I forgot all about it for nearly a week as you can see.
Given that nuclear power supplies a large percentage of your power, which was never the case in the U.S., what’s the strategy for coping with the shortfall? Are there more non-nuclear plants planned, or is the plan just to make do with less energy?
That is indeed a problem. There are attempts to reduce consumption, including a general tax on energy that is used to reduce labor costs. The investment in renewable energy sources has been increased. This year renewable sources covered 10% of all electricity used. Germany has the highest wind energy output in the world. Actually, the wind plants became so wide-spread that environmentalists now fight against them. This is subsidized directly and indirectly - the traditional energy conglomerates have to buy electricity from small providers at a very generous rate. Realistically abandoning nuclear power will probably require an increased use of fossil sources or energy imports. Both are of course far from ideal solutions.