Deutsche Wirtschaft. How Germany is “reducing” emissions by closing clean energy sources (translation in 1st comment)
Deutsche Wirtschaft. How Germany is “reducing” emissions by closing clean energy sources (translation in 1st comment)
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Deutsche Wirtschaft. What is Germany playing at?
Scheduled for the end of 2021 – as well as the end of next year – the shutdown of Germany’s last nuclear power plants is going as smoothly as can be expected from our stereotypically perfectly organized Western neighbors. But the meticulous planning of this operation masks a lack of thought about its long-term consequences. And these will be fatal
On New Year’s Eve, three nuclear power plants will be shut down: Grohnde in Lower Saxony, the last of three Gundremmingen units in Bavaria, and Brokdorf in Schleswig-Holstein (pictured above). It was the protests against the construction of the latter more than four decades ago that forged the identity of the German anti-nuclear movement, which is now triumphing in the form of the total phasing out of nuclear energy, due to take place in 12 months.
The Grohnde power plant, which has been in operation since 1985, produces – or rather, has produced – 11 billion kilowatt hours (11 terawatt hours, TWh) of electricity per year. Block C of the Gundremmingen power plant (1984) produced about 10 TWh and the Brokdorf power plant (1986) about 11 Twh. The operation of these power plants meant avoided emissions of about 30 million tons of carbon dioxide per year.
“We have a massive problem in using all forces and resources to solve the climate crisis. One very important tool in this fight is clean energy. Meanwhile, we are getting rid of one of the very important sources of this energy in a completely irrational way”- said the climate scientist Professor Szymon Malinowski in front of the German embassy in Warsaw, where yesterday a symbolic protest against the anti-nuclear policy of the German government took place.
Atom for climate neutrality Nuclear power is a stable source of low-carbon energy and an indispensable source of electricity in the world’s climate-neutral energy mix in 2050. According to the currently most comprehensive analysis of the changes necessary to achieve this goal – the International Energy Agency’s “Net Zero by 2050” report – renewable sources can provide 90 percent of electricity by mid-century. The rest – mainly nuclear power plants, which means a doubling of installed capacity from today’s levels, despite the relatively small percentage share.
“A major contribution to [the net-zero emissions scenario] comes from nuclear power, with output growth of 40 percent by 2030 and doubling by 2050, although nuclear’s overall share of electricity generation will be less than 10 percent. In the early 2030s, global nuclear capacity additions reach 30 gigawatts per year, five times faster than in the preceding decade. In developed economies, extending the life of existing reactors [represents] one of the most cost-effective ways to obtain low-carbon electricity,” – reads the IEA report
In light of the IEA and IPCC reports, as well as a recent publication by the European Economic Agency (a UN body), which calculated that nuclear energy is the least carbon-intensive source of energy, and also brings a number of other environmental benefits, such as the consumption of raw materials or acreage (the Grohnde power plant occupies a mere 0.3 square kilometers), one must therefore be surprised by Germany’s iron-fisted consistency in liquidating a valuable energy source, on top of which it has long been paid off.
Pacifism in the service of the climate crisis Atomausstieg, because of course Germany has the right word for phasing out nuclear power, is the result of the strength that the German anti-nuclear movement, which initially grew out of pacifism opposing the deployment of nuclear weapons in Germany, gradually gained. Gradually, the anti-nuclear movement expanded to include everything nuclear, gaining strength after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 and the Fukushima disaster in 2011.
Over time, Germany’s main political parties recognized the public mood and also began to oppose nuclear power, at first by abandoning its development, notes Professor Simon Friederich, a philosopher of science at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and head of the pro-nuclear environmental organization Ökomoderne.
Pacifism in the service of the climate crisis Atomausstieg, because of course Germany has the right word for nuclear phase-out, is the result of the strength gradually gained by the German anti-nuclear movement, which initially grew out of a pacifism opposing the deployment of nuclear weapons in Germany. Gradually, the anti-nuclear movement expanded to include everything nuclear, gaining strength after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 and the Fukushima disaster in 2011.
Over time, Germany’s main political parties recognized the public mood and also began to oppose nuclear power, at first by abandoning its development, notes Professor Simon Friederich, a philosopher of science at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and head of the pro-nuclear environmental organization Ökomoderne.
“Many people blame Chancellor Angela Merkel for the Atomausstieg, but I think that’s an oversimplification of the issue. The last reactor was ordered while the Social Democratic government of Helmut Schmidt was still in power. After taking power, the CDU conservatives stopped developing nuclear, which really started the decline of nuclear power in Germany. The process only accelerated after the Greens entered government in 1998 and then after Fukushima,” – Friederich says.
Today, the German Greens make no secret of their joy.
“Maintaining nuclear power prevents necessary investments in renewable energy sources, which can be developed in a more climate-friendly, cheaper and faster way,” wrote the Lower Saxony region of the party, contradicting the findings of the IPCC and other scientific bodies. Interestingly, the Polish Greens – or at least a noticeable portion of them – take a softer stance.
“The Pomeranian branch of our party youth group in its statement critical of the location of the [first Polish] nuclear power plant in Choczew included the sentence ‘We are not full opponents of the atom. I am glad about this. For I think that the Green Party treated this topic too orthodoxy, inheriting such a position from the German Greens, who took opposition to nuclear energy on their banner in completely different times and circumstances – political, geopolitical, social, sociopsychological and climatic,” wrote former party co-chair Marek Kossakowski on Facebook.
To cut emissions, you have to increase them Shutting down three power plants this year and another three at the end of 2022 will have a measurable and negative impact on Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions balance. This is even admitted by German organisations opposing nuclear power and pushing the Energiewende policy, i.e. basing the energy mix on renewable energy sources.
Germany’s reduction target for 2030 is 65% (relative to 1990), 88% (relative to 1990) and 88% (relative to 1990). Germany’s reduction target for 2030 is 65% (relative to 1990), 88% by 2040 and climate neutrality by 2045. The new government coalition of social democrats from the SPD, the Greens and the liberal FDP also plans to accelerate the transition away from coal by eight years – to 2030. Will it succeed? Certainly the trajectory of declining emissions will be disrupted between 2022 and 2023 after the dismantling of the once mighty nuclear power industry.
“Shutting down the atom will result in more power generation from lignite and hard coal, as well as more imports,” – calculated DIW Berlin, one of Germany’s most respected economic institutions, while advocating the closure of nuclear power plants.
“In the short term, an increase in CO2 emissions from the electricity sector can be expected in 2022 and 2023, which should be quickly reduced by the accelerated expansion of renewable energy. Security of supply will not be threatened in the medium term if the German electricity system quickly transitions to renewables in combination with storage and system flexibility,” – writes DIW Berlin in a report that is a representative example of a counter to the arguments of the proponents of nuclear power.
Green energy in a gas lag Proponents of nuclear argue that wind and solar power will not provide a continuous supply, so basing the system on renewables will actually require support for gas-fired power plants, a carbon-intensive source (though not as carbon-intensive as coal). Onshore wind power plants operate approx. Wind turbines on land work about 30% of the time, offshore about 50%, and photovoltaic panels about 15%, which is in stark contrast to nuclear, which generates electricity 80-90% of the time.
Even in the long term, it is not possible to develop energy storage technologies so as to ensure security of supply in an economy that consumes about 500 Twh of electricity annually (for comparison, Poland consumed about 170 TWh in 2020), say opponents of Atomausstieg. This is supposed to make the case that by getting rid of nuclear power plants, Germany is condemning itself to decades of stabilizing its electricity system with gas – which is supposed to explain the gas deals with Russia.
There is also no shortage of analyses that Germany’s anti-nuclear policy is part of a larger plan to become the EU’s gas hub after other countries follow Berlin’s example and also liquidate or reduce their nuclear power sector. This is already the case in Belgium, where in the name of decarbonization (sic!) all seven reactors will be shut down by 2025. Their place will be taken by gas-fired power plants.