Berlin: Germany will close three nuclear power plants on Friday even when Europe faced one of its worst energy crises, after Angela Merkel’s schedule to remove atomic energy.
With the price of energy that has risen and tension is higher between Europe and the main gas supplier of Russia, the closure of plants in brokdorf, grohnde and gundremmingen can tighten extortion.
This step will divide the two remaining nuclear capacities in Germany and reduce the energy output of around four gigawatt equivalent to the power produced by 1,000 wind turbines.
Protests for Fukushima’s nuclear disaster in 2011 encouraged former Merkel Chancellor to move the wheel to leave nuclear power more than 10 years ago.
Germany plans to fully increase atomic energy at the end of 2022, when it will close the last three factories in Neckarwestheim, Essenbach and Emsland.
But with energy prices that surge throughout Europe, the plan time that comes to produce will hardly be worse.
The price of European reference gas, the Netherlands TTF, reached 187.78 Euros per megawatt hours on December 10, 10 times higher than the beginning of the year and electricity prices also soared.
Spike has been triggered by geopolitical tensions with Russia, which supplies a third of European gas.
Western countries accuse Russia to limit gas delivery to suppress Europe amid tensions over Ukrainian conflict.
Moscow also wanted to push through a controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline, set to send more Russian gas to Germany.
– Hike Prices – The end of nuclear power in Germany is likely to push prices further, according to Sebastian Herold, a professor of energy policy at the University of Darmstadt of Applied Sciences.
“In the long run, the hope is that the increase in renewable energy will balance the situation, but this will not happen in the short term,” he told AFP.
Until Germany can really increase renewable energy, it will still depend on fossil fuels to install the gap left by the nuclear exit.
“This will make Germany more dependent on natural gas overall, at least in the short term, and thus a little more dependent on Russia,” Herold said.
This transition can also take longer than what Germany wants, with progress on renewable energy slowed in recent years by opposition to energy infrastructure projects.
The proportion of energy produced by renewable energy is expected to decrease in 2021 for the first time since 1997 to 42 percent, compared to 45.3 percent by 2020.
and put forward prices, the closure of nuclear plants will also eliminate the main source of low-cost carbon energy Countries that have struggled to meet ambitious climate goals.
The new coalition government under the Social Democrat Olaf Scholz has promised to present a coal outline planned by German to 2030 and want Germany to produce 80 percent of electricity from renewable energy in the same year.
– The second thoughts – but Robert Habeck, co-leader of the green party and the new Super Service Head made for the economy and the climate, recognized this week that Germany was already in the course to pass the climate target for 2022 and maybe also 2023.
Other UE countries , including France, continuing to encourage nuclear energy and campaigning for it included in the list of EU sustainable energy sources that qualify for investment.
Even in Germany, public opinion against nuclear seems to be softened.
In the recent Yougov survey for Welt Am Sonntag newspaper, around 50 percent of Germany said they supported the reversal of the nuclear shutdown planned because of the sharp increase in energy prices recently.
Monika Schnitzer, a member of the German economist council, told the Rheinische Post newspaper that it would make sense “ecologically and ecologically” to delay the shutdown.
But the government adheres to Merkel’s plan, with Habeck this week defending nuclear shutdown.
Every politician calls for the reintroduction of nuclear energy “also must say, I want to have nuclear waste in my constituency area,” he said.
“As soon as someone said that, I will review this problem.”