nuclear-news

Germany copes without bulk of nuclear power,  By Vera Ecket and Muriel Boselli, FRANKFURT, May 23 (Reuters) – Germany is coping without about three quarters of its nuclear power capacity by burning more climate-warming coal, reaping the rewards of renewables investments, and importing more French atomic energy.

The shutdown over the weekend of another nuclear plant means almost 16 gigawatts (GW) of German nuclear power capacity was offline on Monday, with nearly half of the capacity ordered to shut by the government in reaction to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March.

The move to close older reactors in response to Japan’s nuclear crisis threatens possible power cuts next winter, but for now Germany is comfortably supplied with its own giant green power capacity, dirty coal units and other countries’ nuclear reactors.

………The website of European grid operators’ group Entso-E showed Germany also importing power from coal-dependent Poland and coal and nuclear reliant Czech producers but exporting to Switzerland and the Netherlands.

“We are getting some 0.5 GW of power a day more from Poland because the Czechs have one Temelin (nuclear) block offline but when there is a lot of solar production in the midday, then even France imports from us,” one trader said.

A spokesman at the Federal Network Agency said that since the mid-March closure orders there had been some days when Germany was a net importer and others when it was an exporter…..

More coal burning in, and around, Germany to compensate for the loss of nuclear means higher emissions of climate-warming carbon in countries that are already among the region’s biggest polluters.

But Germany’s multi-billion euro investments in clean energy technology are softening the impact on the environment and on energy supply in Europe’s biggest economy.

……..Thanks in part to huge investments in green technologies over the last decade, Germany had plenty of spare capacity when it decided to shut the old reactors