nuclear-news

Germany’s dramatic departure from the nuclear industry. Other European States follow.

On the last day of 2021, as final preparations were being made for the New
Year’s Eve firework display in central Berlin, outside the German capital
another era was drawing to a close. It was the beginning of the end of
Germany’s decades-long dalliance with nuclear power.

On December 31, Germany shut down three of its six remaining nuclear plants. By the end of
2022, the other three will be shut as well. Two decades after an agreement
to eliminate nuclear power became law, the country’s phaseout has been
dramatic. In 2002, Germany relied on nuclear power for nearly 30 percent of
its electricity. Within a year, that percentage will be zero.

Germany isn’t the only European nation reevaluating its relationship with nuclear
energy. Its neighbor Belgium currently sources nearly 40 percent of its
electricity from nuclear power but has committed to closing down its seven
remaining reactors by 2025.

To the south, Switzerland has already shut down
one of its five remaining nuclear power plants, the first stage in what
will eventually be a total phaseout. Switzerland’s phaseout was decided
in a 2017 referendum, when the majority of the public endorsed an energy
strategy that subsidized renewables and banned new nuclear power plants.

The Swiss referendum was driven by environmental concerns raised in the
wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster, when three reactors melted after a
tsunami overwhelmed the power plant. That disaster, and concerns about the
disposal of nuclear waste, also hastened Germany’s nuclear shutdown.
Shortly afterward, then-chancellor Angela Merkel—who had previously said
she didn’t agree with shutting down nuclear plants early—announced that
Germany would no longer extend the operating life of existing plants.

 Ars Technica 23rd Jan 2022

https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/01/europe-is-in-the-middle-of-a-messy-nuclear-showdown/

January 25, 2022 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Germany, politics