In Germany, the Greens are likely to be propelled into government in the national vote

Times 14th March 2021, The national vote is expected to propel the Greens into government for the first time since 2005 — either as junior partner to the CDU/CSU or even as the leader of a so-called “traffic light coalition” with the Social Democrats (red) and the liberal Free Democrats (yellow).

The Baden-Württemberg poll — and another today in neighbouringRhineland-Palatinate — are the first key indicators of what lies ahead. Tucked in the southwest corner of Germany between France and Switzerland, Baden-Württemberg is at first sight an unlikely Green stronghold. The
state is home to Mercedes-Benz and Porsche, and hundreds of thousands of jobs in the area around Stuttgart, the state capital, depend on the car industry. But in 2011, in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, Kretschmann became Germany’s first — and so far only —Green state premier after running on a platform to shut nuclear plants, impose speed limits on the autobahn and reform an elitist school system. He was re-elected five years later after his party’s share of the vote surged to a record 30 per cent.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/greens-set-to-redraw-germanys-political-landscape-b6xmvnspt

March 15, 2021 Posted by Christina MacPherson | Germany, politics | Leave a comment

Germany pledgse to work towards a nuclear free Europe

Ten years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, German environment minister Svenja Schulze insisted that the country does not consider nuclear energy an option for low-carbon power production. “Nuclear power is neither safe nor clean,” Schulze said, rejecting the “myth” that the technology could help to find a way out of the climate crisis. “The future is for renewable energy,” she said. Germany’s phase-out decision, originally taken in the year 2000 and confirmed after the 2011 meltdown of the power plant in Japan, had “brought peace to a social conflict that raged for decades” and helped minimise a major risk at least nationally, Schulze said.

Nuclear power could not be in Germany’s interest when it is generated abroad either, “be it in our immediate neighbourhood, in the EU or globally”, the minister said, adding that “our work has not ended with the German nuclear exit”. The environment ministry published a position paper listing 12 key objectives required to reduce nuclear risk even further. They include actions under the three sections of a) completing the German nuclear phase-out: Close nuclear plants, promote final storage, accelerate the expansion of renewable energies; b) reducing nuclear risks in Europe, strengthen cooperation; and c) increasing nuclear safety worldwide, maintain nuclear risk competence and provide appropriate information.

Today we commemorate the catastrophic #nuclear accident that took place in #Fukushima 10 years ago. This disaster has shown us the risks of #NuclearEnergy. Also @SvenjaSchulze68

With a view to the decision by Germany’s largest neighbour country France to extend the running time of old nuclear reactors, she said that while the “principle of energy sovereignty” would have to be respected, there are “technical and economic limits to retrofitting”. Especially plants near the German border would be “monitored very closely and critically”, the minister said, adding that the German government expected France to enable “comprehensive cross-border cooperation” on the matter.  More than half of all EU states do not use nuclear power at all or are considering a phase-out, Schulze said.

“Together with likeminded countries in Europe, I will actively work towards more countries joining the phase-out of nuclear power,” she stated. Schulze minister colleagues from Austria and Belgium, Leonore Gewessler and Tinne van der Straeten, joined her German counterpart in a joint message published on Twitter, in which the three state representatives said they will work towards ending the use of nuclear power in Europe and pave the way for an energy system solely based on renewables.

Nuclear “poison for a secure and climate-just future” – NGOs

Ten years after the disaster, Japanese officials in Fukushima still grapple with key questions regarding the removal, storage and processing of the plant’s nuclear waste. These problems remain unresolved and many former residents are still not allowed to return to their homes, Schulze said. “If we’ve learned something from all this then it has to be the common goal to protect people from further devastation from nuclear power.” For Germany, nuclear power’s “residual risk” simply had been too significant to carry on with the technology, she argued. Of the six remaining reactors in the country, three will go offline as planned in 2021 and the remaining three at the end of 2022. A 2019 survey found that 77 percent of people in Germany support the nuclear phase-out and 60 percent also its quick finalisation by the end of next year.

A group of more than 50 civil society and environmental groups backed the government’s stance on excluding nuclear energy from Germany’s emissions reduction plans, arguing that claims about the technology being “climate neutral” and “environmentally friendly” would be “poison for a secure and climate-just future”. In a joint letter, the group including NGOs like Germanwatch, BUND, NABU or PowerShift said nuclear power could have no future in energy systems and called on the government to double down on its efforts to phase-out the technology, including a shutdown of uranium enrichment facilities in Germany and an end of EU nuclear power project funding. Investments instead should flow into renewable power, storage technology and efficiency gains, the group argued.

March 13, 2021 Posted by Christina MacPherson | Germany, politics | Leave a comment

Widespread public support for Germany’s nuclear phaseout, as renewable energy expands

TechXplore, 5 Mar 21,    ”……….By the end of 2022, Germany will have achieved its goal of completely phasing out nuclear power, set by Chancellor Angela Merkel on May 30, 2011.

The plan represented a dramatic change of course by Merkel’s ruling conservatives, who just a few months earlier had agreed to extend the lifespan of Germany’s oldest power stations.

It was met with widespread public support in a country with a powerful anti-nuclear movement, fuelled first by fears of a Cold War conflict and then by disasters such as Chernobyl.

Yet it also prompted a lengthy legal battle with major energy companies, which ended Friday with Berlin’s agreement to pay 2.4 billion euros worth of compensation to nuclear power plant operators………

The German government is still looking for a long-term storage site for the country’s residual nuclear waste.

Renewables have seen a spectacular rise since 2011 and in 2020 made up more than 50 percent of Germany’s energy mix for the first time, according to the Fraunhofer research institute—compared with less than 25 percent 10 years ago.

The declining importance of nuclear power (12.5 percent in 2020) “has been compensated for by the expansion of renewable energies”, Claudia Kemfert, an energy expert at the DIW economic research institute, told AFP.

Nuclear power stations have therefore not been replaced by coal, though the fossil fuel does still represent almost a quarter of the electricity mix.

March 6, 2021 Posted by Christina MacPherson | Germany, politics | Leave a comment