Germany Shuts Down Three Nuclear Reactors Amid Europe’s Energy Crisis

At a time when Europe is facing one of the worst energy crises of its recent period, half of Germany’s still active nuclear capacity in the country will be dismantled on Friday, a decade after Angela Merkel’s historic decision to abandon that energy source.

Specifically, the reactors located in the German towns of Brokdorf (north), Grohnde (center) and Gundremmingen (south) will cease operating in 2022. The set represents about 4 gigawatt hours of installed power, or the equivalent of a thousand wind turbines.

By the end of 2022, it will be the turn of the country’s last three power plants, Neckarwestheim (south), Isar 2 (south) and Emsland (north), with a capacity of around 4 GW.

The Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011 convinced the former German chancellor of the need to leave behind that controversial non-fossil energy source.

Geopolitical tensions

Despite the withdrawal of a type of energy that still provides about 11% of the electricity generated in 2020 in the country, “security of supply in Germany continues to be guaranteed,” Robert Habeck, Minister of Economy and Climate Protection, belonging to the Greens, said in a press release on Tuesday.

To compensate for the end of nuclear power, and while waiting for renewables to completely fill this gap, Germany is sourcing itself with fossil fuels, particularly gas, en masse.

The withdrawal of three nuclear reactors out of six that were still in operation comes amid a time of supply crisis on the continent, fueled by the recent resurgence of geopolitical tensions with Russia, europe’s main gas supplier.

Some Western states suspect that Moscow will continue to put obstacles to deliveries to exert pressure, while Russian military maneuvers continue on the border with Ukraine.

Germany’s new government recently warned Moscow that it could order a “shutdown” of the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which connects Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea, in the event of a military escalation.

But there is another factor in the rise in prices: stocks in Europe are currently at their lowest, affected by the prolonged winter of 2020.

Replenishment is proving difficult while demand is strong, reflecting a stronger-than-expected rebound in economies after the hole caused by Covid-19.

Added to this are bottlenecks for renewable energies, such as wind and solar, for meteorological reasons.

According to Sebastian Herold, professor of energy policy at the University of Applied Sciences in Darmstadt (West), the end of nuclear power in Germany is expected to push up prices even further.

“In the long term, we expect the rise of renewables to balance things out, but it won’t be that way anytime soon,” he told AFP. Germany will remain “more dependent on natural gas in general, at least in the short term, and therefore also a little more dependent on Russia,” according to the professor.

Less nuclear, more _CO2

To this is another setback: the closure of plants eliminates a low-carbon energy source in a country where emissions continue to rise.

The use of fossil fuels to offset the end of nuclear power could increase _CO2 emissions “by up to 40 million tons” a year, according to the Berlin-based DIW institute.

Germany is unlikely to meet its _CO2 emission reduction targets “by 2022,” and “it will be difficult by 2023,” Robert Habeck warned in an interview with Die Zeit.

It would be necessary to install between 1,000 and 1,500 new wind turbines per year, according to Habeck, compared to the “just over 450” per year installed in recent years, in particular because it encounters opposition on the ground.

The new ruling coalition in Berlin led by the Social Democrat Olaf Scholz has set itself the goal of 80% of electricity in Germany being produced sustainably by 2030, an advance of 8 years compared to the forecasts of the previous executive.

Source: France 24