{"id":4074,"date":"2026-04-13T02:23:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T02:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/4074\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T02:23:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T02:23:13","slug":"berlin-says-nuclear-is-over-the-debate-isnt-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/4074\/","title":{"rendered":"Berlin says nuclear is over. The debate isn\u2019t. \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A return to operating the most recently shut-down plants would be \u201cextremely difficult,\u201d Andreas Lenz, the CDU\/CSU parliamentary group\u2019s energy-policy spokesperson, wrote to me. Like Scheer, he pointed to the advanced state of decommissioning, the loss of personnel and the lack of licenses.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Above all, however, he pointed to the SPD.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt has to be said plainly \u2014 the coalition partner lacks the political will,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Nuclear endgame<\/p>\n<p>Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency in Paris, is among the sharpest critics of Germany\u2019s energy policy. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/friedrich-merz-is-right-to-reject-germanys-nuclear-phase-out-says-iea-chief-fatih-birol\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Speaking on the sidelines<\/a> of a conference in Berlin, the 68-year-old also rejected the doctrine of finality. Restarting the most recently shut-down reactors would be \u201cvery challenging,\u201d he acknowledged. Still, he argues for \u201ca sober second look.\u201d If even a single nuclear plant could return to the grid, he says, that would be \u201can important gain for Germany.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One country that has taken the right path, in Birol\u2019s view, is Poland. While Germany tears down its nuclear plants, Poland\u2019s state-owned company Polskie Elektrownie J\u0105drowe, or PEJ, is building its first one. For now, the site is little more than a cleared strip through a coastal forest, a few hundred meters from the Baltic Sea. The first concrete is to be poured at the end of 2028, and the first of three reactor units are scheduled to begin operating in 2036.<\/p>\n<p>In conversation, PEJ chief Marek Woszczyk explains Poland\u2019s turn to nuclear power with a single word: sovereignty. For decades, coal carried the country\u2019s power system, but Poland also learned how risky dependence on Russian gas could be. Therefore, as coal declines, nuclear energy has become the obvious answer. It offers electricity that is reliably available, affordable over the long term and largely emissions-free. Poland, he says, is betting on proven and modern Generation III+ reactors that can run for 60 to 80 years, perhaps longer, and that become highly competitive once the steep upfront investment has been made.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A return to operating the most recently shut-down plants would be \u201cextremely difficult,\u201d Andreas Lenz, the CDU\/CSU parliamentary&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4075,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2788,3562,4102,1646,4103,446,2935,393,2619,688,5,2790,1108],"class_list":{"0":"post-4074","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-coal","9":"tag-electricity","10":"tag-emissions","11":"tag-energy","12":"tag-energy-dependency","13":"tag-energy-prices","14":"tag-fossil-fuels","15":"tag-friedrich-merz","16":"tag-gas","17":"tag-german-politics","18":"tag-germany","19":"tag-nuclear-power","20":"tag-renewable-energy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}