Germany's move away from nuclear energy is a significant component of their national energy strategy, with the goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050.

The country plans to increase its renewable energy share to 80% by 2050, as part of its Energiewende, or national energy system reform strategy.

However, the phase-out of nuclear energy has been a topic of controversy, with some arguing that it will lead to increased reliance on coal-fired power and decreased energy security.

In 2011, Germany phased out 17 nuclear reactors after the Fukushima accident, which provided 25 percent of the country's electricity at the time.

The lost nuclear power was replaced with coal-fired production and net electricity imports, resulting in a social cost of approximately $12 billion per year.

The German energy market is currently coping with the loss of nuclear energy, with renewables covering 54 percent of the country's power consumption in January and February.

However, the Russian-Ukrainian war has had a significant impact on Germany's energy supply, with the country relying heavily on Russian gas supplies.

In fact, Germany imported 55 percent of its gas needs from Russia before the war, and has since reduced this to 40 percent.

The war has also led to a significant increase in energy prices, with Germany's energy prices rising due to the conflict.

Despite this, the German government has pledged to phase out Russian gas by mid-2024, and is seeking to diversify its energy supply from other countries, including the US and Qatar.

The country is also investing in new liquefied natural gas terminals, with two projects launched at a cost of €1 billion.

However, the construction of these terminals will take three to four years, leaving Germany vulnerable to energy shortages in the short term.

In fact, Germany's GDP is expected to fall by 2.2 percent in 2023 if Russian gas imports are cut off, with a cumulative decline of 220 billion euros for 2022 and 2023.

The German government has also delayed setting a gas price cap until March next year, which has been criticized by opposition parties.

Some sectors of the German population are pushing to bring nuclear reactors back online, with 64% of Germans supporting the restart of nuclear power.

In fact, nuclear power could cut Germany's carbon emissions by 25-30 million tons annually, and old nuclear fuel rods can be used to restart plants.

Comprehensive inspections have found that three nuclear power plants are safe to operate, and the German Green Party has agreed to postpone the shutdown of these plants for a few months.

However, the German government has not formally adopted this proposal, and the future of nuclear energy in Germany remains uncertain.

The EU has proposed listing nuclear power as "green energy", but Germany views nuclear energy as not clean or renewable.

In fact, 65 percent of Germans see nuclear power as a climate solution, and the majority of Germans support extending the operation of nuclear plants.

The German government has been criticized for misleading citizens about the risks of extending nuclear power, and for claiming that there is a lack of fuel for nuclear plants.

However, nuclear plant operators have offered fuel delivery solutions, and the Isar nuclear power plant can operate without additional fuel.

Overall, Germany's move away from nuclear energy is a complex and contentious issue, with significant implications for the country's energy security and climate goals.

The impact of the Russian-Ukrainian war on Germany's energy supply has added to the complexity of this issue, and the country must carefully consider its options for ensuring a stable and sustainable energy supply.

While there are valid arguments on both sides, it is clear that nuclear energy can play a role in reducing Germany's carbon emissions and improving its energy security.

Therefore, it is recommended that the German government reconsider its decision to phase out nuclear energy, and explore options for extending the operation of existing nuclear plants.

Germany's move away from nuclear energy is a significant component of their national energy strategy, with the goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050.

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Energy transition
Germany ’ s Energiewende is a national energy system reform strategy aimed at reducing the country ’ s total energy consumption and eventually withdrawing from the use of nuclear energy.
The German “Energiewende ” energy transition has become a new term widely quoted in the English-language media, and Germany plans to increase the share of renewable energy to 80% by 2050.
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The country plans to increase its renewable energy share to 80% by 2050, as part of its Energiewende, or national energy system reform strategy.

However, the phase-out of nuclear energy has been a topic of controversy, with some arguing that it will lead to increased reliance on coal-fired power and decreased energy security.

Title:

Content: Three nuclear-fired power plants will be taken off the grid in Germany on Friday as part of the country's plan to end atomic power.

"The nuclear phaseout makes our country safer and helps to avoid radioactive waste," said Federal Environment and Nuclear Safety Minister Steffi Lemke.

"It is now essential to ... advance the search for a final repository for high-level radioactive waste as well as permanent solutions for low- and medium-level radioactive waste," the environment ministry said.

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel speeded up the phaseout following the 2011 Fukushima accident in Japan.

Friday's shutdown affects power plants in Brokdorf in Schleswig-Holstein, Grohnde in Lower Saxony and Gundremmingen C in Bavaria.

Germany's remaining three nuclear plants — Emsland in Lower Saxony, Isar 2 in Bavaria and Neckarwestheim 2 in Baden-Württemberg — will be closed by the end of 2022 "at the latest," the environment ministry said.

"Since 2011, Germany has been drawing a line under a highly problematic technology in an orderly, reliable process," Lemke said.

Nuclear accounts for about 10 percent of Germany's electricity production. The shutdown has sparked criticism as Germany will have to dramatically ramp up renewable energy and has also increased its reliance on highly polluting coal-fired power.

"Security of supply in Germany continues to be guaranteed," said Robert Habeck, federal climate and economy minister. He added that reliable and "sustainably generated electricity" is a "central requirement for aligning our economy and industry toward climate neutrality."

That stance puts Berlin at loggerheads with France, where nuclear is the largest element of its energy mix (and also helps supply Germany).

EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said in September that existing nuclear plants, which provide low-carbon electricity essential to the green transition, can be kept running "for two, five, 10 years," adding: "Why deprive ourselves of this production capacity?"

France is planning to scale down the share of nuclear in its electricity mix from 75 percent to 50 percent by 2035, but President Emmanuel Macron said in November that France "will restart the construction of nuclear reactors" while "continuing to develop renewable energies."

Macron also said France will invest €1 billion into research and development, notably into small modular reactors.

Belgium recently decided to shut down all its nuclear power plants by 2025, but plans to invest €100 million in new generation nuclear reactors and research.

More from ... Louise Guillot

In 2011, Germany phased out 17 nuclear reactors after the Fukushima accident, which provided 25 percent of the country's electricity at the time.

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Content: 'Sustainability challenges' What Big Oil, green movement conceal from us

The US funds its military aid to Ukraine with tax dollars and some of America’s allies fund Putin’s military with purchases of his oil and gas exports. And that’s the absurdity that has come to define the Russian invasion
Representative image

NEW YORK: It has long been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. By that definition, we’re the ones detached from reality if we keep accepting what the oil industry and the green movement keep telling us over and over again and expecting a different result. The greens keep saying that because the price of wind and solar is now as cheap as, or cheaper than, fossil fuels, they’ve won the energy war. Game, set, match — welcome to the green planet.

The oil companies say — as they have in each previous energy crisis since 1973 — that the only answer to this energy crisis is the one they’ve offered for the past 49 years: drill, baby, drill. Welcome to reality. Well, they’re both wrong, and accepting the repetition of either of these tired shibboleths is hurting us economically, environmentally and geopolitically — especially, of late, geopolitically.

Because our continued addiction to fossil fuels is bolstering Vladimir Putin’s petrodictatorship and creating a situation where we in the West are — yes, say it with me now — funding both sides of the war. We fund our military aid to Ukraine with our tax dollars and some of America’s allies fund Putin’s military with purchases of his oil and gas exports.

And if that’s not the definition of insanity, then I don’t know what is. Have no illusion — these sins of the green movement and the oil industry are not equal. The greens are trying to fix a real, planet-threatening problem, even if their ambition exceeds their grasp. The oil and coal companies know that what they are doing is incompatible with a stable, healthy environment. Yes, they are right that without them there would be no global economy today. But unless they use their immense engineering talents to become energy companies, not just fossil fuel companies, there will be no livable economy tomorrow.

Let’s look at both. For too long, too many in the green movement have treated the necessary and urgent shift we need to make from fossil fuels to renewable energy as though it were like flipping a switch — just get off oil, get off gasoline, get off coal and get off nuclear — and do it NOW, without having put in place the kind of transition mechanisms, clean energy sources and market incentives required to make such a massive shift in our energy system.

It’s Germany in 2011, suddenly deciding after the Fukushima accident to phase out its 17 relatively clean and reliable nuclear reactors, which provided some 25 percent of the country’s electricity. This, even though Germany had nowhere near enough solar, wind, geothermal or hydro to replace that nuclear power. So now it’s burning more coal and gas.

A 2019 working paper for the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research found that in Germany “the lost nuclear electricity production due to the phaseout was replaced primarily by coal-fired production and net electricity imports. The social cost of this shift from nuclear to coal is approximately $12 billion per year. Over 70 percent of this cost comes from the increased mortality risk associated with exposure to the local air pollution emitted when burning fossil fuels.”

Today, the European Union is drawing up a plan to break its addiction to Russian oil and gas by 2027, but, in the meantime, Putin is laughing all the way to the bank. As CNN reported in April, citing a report by the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air: “Russian revenues from fossil fuel exports to the European Union soared during the first two months of the Ukraine invasion” — to $46.3 billion. That was more than double the value of Russian energy imported by the E.U. during the same two-month period a year earlier.

That was not because the E.U.’s volume of imports doubled. Higher oil and gas prices accounted for most of that increase. In other words, Putin starts a war that creates instability, which drives up oil prices, so he makes twice as much money exporting roughly the same amount of oil.

While Germany jumped off nuclear before it had a safety net of sufficient clean alternatives, at least it has been on a serious, path-defining quest to get them. Indeed, the whole world owes Germany a huge debt for driving down the price of solar panels and wind turbines through the subsidies and tax incentives it created. In Germany, wind turbines, solar panels and other renewables covered 54 percent of power consumption this past January and February — which is AMAZING. In 2021, renewable energy sources accounted for only about 12 percent of total U.S. energy that was consumed.

Still, the most important delusion of the green movement today — of which I am a proud, if grouchy, member — is telling itself that because the price of wind and solar technology has fallen so low now that it can beat coal and natural gas in most markets, often even without subsidies, it’s “game over” for fossil fuels. I wish. Price is only half the story.

If you can’t install the transmission lines — to get that sun and wind power from the vast open spaces where it is generated to the big urban areas where it is needed — and if you cannot set aside more land to install the scale of solar and wind farms you need to replace coal, gas or nuclear, it doesn’t matter that your renewables are cheaper on a per-kilowatt-hour basis.

And today transmission is a huge problem in the U.S. and Europe, where many people don’t want wind farms, solar fields, electricity lines — or natural gas pipelines — in their backyard. I wish this were not the case, but there is no immaculate pathway from brown energy to green energy. The road is paved with cruel trade-offs. Pick your poison — but grow up. Meanwhile, ever since the 1973 Arab oil embargo, the big oil companies have basically said in each successive crisis: Sure, we need more clean energy, but you have to understand — it doesn’t scale. Right now, we’re in an emergency, so we just need to drill more. You hear the same refrain today, which is why we’re in danger of wasting yet another oil crisis and never breaking our fossil fuel addiction.

For those oil companies sitting on large natural gas deposits — which are needed in this transition because gas is cleaner than coal — it means tapping those deposits but doing so with zero methane leakage; otherwise gas becomes as bad as coal. But it also means thinking much more seriously about how fossil fuel companies truly make the transition to become “energy companies,” not just oil companies, so they can leverage their amazing pools of engineering talent to provide more energy solutions that save the planet, not warm it.

Friedman is an Opinion Columnist with NYT©2022

The New York Times

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The lost nuclear power was replaced with coal-fired production and net electricity imports, resulting in a social cost of approximately $12 billion per year.

The German energy market is currently coping with the loss of nuclear energy, with renewables covering 54 percent of the country's power consumption in January and February.

However, the Russian-Ukrainian war has had a significant impact on Germany's energy supply, with the country relying heavily on Russian gas supplies.

Title:

Content: Geopolitics / Ukraine
The Ukraine War Affects Germany ’ s Energy Strategy
Russia ’ s war on Ukraine forced Germany to overhaul its energy strategy.
Berlin has urgently started the construction of two previously abandoned LNG terminals.
This is the subject of a field interview published by our RFI correspondent in the French "Chronique Reportage International" column on Thursday, March 3rd.
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In an interview published on Thursday, March 03, 2022 in Chronique Reportage International, correspondent Julien Méchaussie reported from Berlin that Germany, which imports more than 50% of its natural gas and relies on Russian supplies, is now forced to review its energy strategy from the bottom up.
In the face of the inevitable price increase, the people are very worried.
The original title of this RFI column in French was: [Guerre en Ukraine: les conséquences sur l'appropriationnement en gaz russe pour l'Allemagne].
The war in Ukraine: consequences of Russian gas supplies for Germany.
Below is a brief summary for information.
The German people are upset -
In a live interview from Berlin published Thursday in Chronique Reportage International, RFI ’ s French-language network, a passer-by said in German on his way to work that the outbreak of the war in Ukraine had caused a decades-old energy policy to collapse in a matter of days.
Rising energy prices are not good for anyone.
This is not good for the job market, which automatically leads to price increases for all products.
People will be afraid of huge inflation, and the impact on the economy is tragic.
Here, the RFI French correspondent pointed out that the fear of the passer-by interviewed represents many German people.
In Germany, which has a long history of importing Russian gas, Prime Minister Olaf Scholz announced the suspension of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project.
The pipeline linking northern Germany to Russia via the Baltic Sea was completed in September 2021.
The project has now come to a halt. Nord Stream 2 declared bankruptcy this week and more than 100 of its collaborators lost their jobs.
There were signs before the war -
A well-known professor of environmental and resource economics called Germany naive.
He said that at the beginning of this winter, the wind has turned around.
Before the war, Russian gas exports to Germany had dropped to their lowest level in months.
Despite the record price, it is now good to see that this is clearly part of the overall strategy of the Russian side.
German Deputy Prime Minister and Federal Minister for Economy and Climate Robert Habeck plans to increase coal imports.
The German Federation of Small and Medium Enterprises has called for an extension of the deadline for coal abandonment, which was decided at the end of last year.
Germany, now seeking to diversify its energy supply, will turn to countries like the United States and Qatar.
But the problem is that these countries are now exporting liquefied natural gas, and Germany has no corresponding terminal to be docked.
Experts interviewed pointed out that Germany is in urgent need of new liquefied natural gas terminals.
However, it takes three to four years to build a terminal.
Of course people can do it as quickly as possible, but this new strategy is not a very short-term solution.
We need to rely on existing infrastructure.
Once the new terminal is put into use, the sky should clear up.
Germany launches old project -
Abandoned two years ago due to a lack of political support, two projects to build LNG terminals in the North Sea have now been urgently launched at a cost of around €1 billion.
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In fact, Germany imported 55 percent of its gas needs from Russia before the war, and has since reduced this to 40 percent.

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Content: Institutes: Germany is threatened with severe deflation if it imposes a ban on Russian gas | DW Arab News | Breaking news and views from around the world | DW | 13.04.2022
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Germany threatened with severe deflation if Russian gas embargo
In forecasts supporting the German government ’ s position, six influential German institutes have warned against an immediate ban on Russian gas imports because, in their view, it would cause a sharp economic contraction.
A poll also showed that a majority of Germans reject such a ban.
Nord Stream pipe in Lubmen, Germany.
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Germany ’ s leading economic forecasters warned on Wednesday that the country would face an economic downturn in 2023 if imports of Russian gas were stopped immediately in the context of sanctions imposed on Moscow for invading Ukraine.
According to the six influential institutes, GDP in Europe ’ s top economic power will fall by 2.2 percent in 2023 if gas supplies, on which Germany is particularly dependent, are cut.
The cumulative decline for 2022 and 2023 will amount to about 220 billion euros, or 6.5 percent of annual wealth, according to the institutes.
Stefan Coats, vice president of one of the institutes, said in a statement: "If gas supplies stop, the German economy is threatened with a severe contraction."
The GDP decline could reach 5% in the second quarter of 2023, before the economy rebounds late in the year.
Tough discussions are taking place among EU countries over the possibility of a ban on Russian gas, and Berlin is one of the main opponents of an immediate halt to imports, saying the country ’ s economic and social peace is at stake.
Economists are debating the consequences of such a decision and Germany ’ s ability to find alternative sources of energy in the near term.
Before the attack on Ukraine, Berlin had been importing more than 55 percent of its needs from Russia, but it has reduced that share to 40 percent and is trying to find other suppliers.
Germany does not expect to phase out Russian gas until the middle of 2024 and at the end of March launched the first phase of its emergency plan to ensure supplies of natural gas in the face of the risk of halting Russian supplies.
Overall, the institutes noted that the German economy was "passing through a period of volatility" at a time when the lifting of restrictions against the epidemic allowed economic activity to revive.
Supply chains "remain under pressure" at a time when China is imposing new restrictions and the war in Ukraine is having "negative effects on the economy both in terms of supply and in terms of demand," she said.
The aftermath of the war forced the institutes to cut their growth forecast for 2022 to 2.7 percent from 4.8 percent in October.
This is reflected in the inflation rate, which is expected to reach 6.1% this year and perhaps even 7.3% if the gas supply is stopped, which will be “the highest rate since the establishment of the Federal Republic. ”
In 2023, the figure will be 5.0% if supplies stop and 2.8% if they continue.
Watch the video 03: 20
Can the gas supply be stopped?
A majority of Germans are against the ban.
A majority of Germans oppose a total ban on Russian energy imports, according to a poll conducted by the "Demoskopi Alnsbach" institute for the German newspaper "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" published on Wednesday (13.04.2022).
The results showed that 57% of those polled support the continuation of oil and gas imports from Russia, while 30% support a complete ban on Russian energy imports.
The survey was conducted between March 25 and April 6, meaning most of them were surveyed before the atrocities were discovered in the Ukrainian town of Bucha on April 3.
Many Germans believe that the war in Ukraine has had significant economic effects for them, with 68% of respondents saying the effects are higher heating costs and 51% saying the effects are higher fuel prices.
Forty-seven percent of respondents said they were turning down heating in their homes for this reason, 37 percent said they were using less of their cars for this reason, and 54 percent said they were taking prices more seriously when shopping.
A / B / B (D / A)

The war has also led to a significant increase in energy prices, with Germany's energy prices rising due to the conflict.

Despite this, the German government has pledged to phase out Russian gas by mid-2024, and is seeking to diversify its energy supply from other countries, including the US and Qatar.

The country is also investing in new liquefied natural gas terminals, with two projects launched at a cost of €1 billion.

However, the construction of these terminals will take three to four years, leaving Germany vulnerable to energy shortages in the short term.

In fact, Germany's GDP is expected to fall by 2.2 percent in 2023 if Russian gas imports are cut off, with a cumulative decline of 220 billion euros for 2022 and 2023.

The German government has also delayed setting a gas price cap until March next year, which has been criticized by opposition parties.

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Content: World Vision: Restarting nuclear power, dragging the German government into crisis
November 06, 2022 00: 03
Eastern Network Television
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With Germany following the NATO sanctions against Russia, the German energy crisis is deepening and leading to serious political instability.
The gold-painted sign “Made in Germany ” has been peeled off. First, the business community complained about the high price of electricity in Germany, averaging 0.37 euros per kilowatt-hour (kWh), compared with 0.18 euros in France, 0.24 euros in the United Kingdom and 0.10 euros in Hungary.
Even if the German government proposed energy subsidies, but other European governments such as Britain and France will do so, German companies still can not compete. The result is that more and more industrial products that Germany was proud of in the past, either set up factories in foreign countries or import some foreign parts to complete in Germany.
In addition, some townships began to have problems with the opening up and strengthening of thermal power generation and transmission, and now there are rare power outages, which have caused great dissatisfaction among the public.
The Minister of Economy and Deputy Prime Minister Hajbek have become the target of attacks by the industrial sector, the German opposition, and the Liberal and Social Democrats in the government, focusing on Habek, who has no economic expertise but is responsible for the environmental ideology, and the government ’ s lack of understanding and compassion for industry, and has been deceiving the three nuclear power plants.
Halbek has always stressed that the German people have long been the majority of anti-nuclear power, but the latest poll shows that 64% of the people support restarting nuclear power to increase supply and reduce electricity prices due to the energy crisis, with 40% of the Green Party voters.
In addition, the Green Party has spoken out in favor of improving climate change, but has been hiding experts ’ suggestions that turning on nuclear power could cut Germany ’ s carbon emissions by 25 million to 30 million tons a year.
In addition, Halbek stressed that the nuclear fuel rods needed for the nuclear power plant may not be available by early next year, but the expert opinion is that the old nuclear fuel rods can also be used and the nuclear power plant can be gradually opened.
Halbek stressed that it would take a long time to open the safety inspection of nuclear power, but the world-famous German Technical Supervision Association immediately hit the face, claiming that they did a comprehensive inspection in March, all three nuclear power plants are normal, as long as limited further testing and monitoring, restart is not a problem at all.
The opposition party also criticized the three-party coalition government for delaying the setting of a gas price cap until March next year. At that time, the weather in Germany has begun to warm up. As a result, the opposition party and the public demand that Habaker resign, which can be regarded as the ruling coalition's biggest crisis to date.
Ph.D., Freie Universität Berlin

Some sectors of the German population are pushing to bring nuclear reactors back online, with 64% of Germans supporting the restart of nuclear power.

In fact, nuclear power could cut Germany's carbon emissions by 25-30 million tons annually, and old nuclear fuel rods can be used to restart plants.

Comprehensive inspections have found that three nuclear power plants are safe to operate, and the German Green Party has agreed to postpone the shutdown of these plants for a few months.

Title:

Content: “There is no excuse for the rich West to be oblivious to the global debt crisis. ” – The Guardian
We start with an opinion piece by Larry Elliott, the Guardian ’ s economic editor, entitled “The wealthy West has little excuse for finally waking up to the global debt crisis. ”
“After a decade or more of their obsession with their own problems, countries in the wealthy West have begun to pay attention to the threat of a looming debt crisis in the poorer parts of the world, ” he says at a meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Washington this week.
The good news is that debt has risen to the highest level on the policy agenda and is seen as a problem that needs to be regulated, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said about the need for distressed countries to help: “Help them deal with the debt burden, which has made the shocks of past years more difficult; and help ensure that the IMF can continue to support them in the years to come. ”
The bad news, according to Elliott, is that Georgieva ’ s appeal has not yet been heeded, as rich countries are still primarily interested in their own problems.
The geopolitical rivalry between the United States and China is also not helping.
Creditor countries may wake up to the idea that there is a debt problem but it is far from a solution.
Talk is not like work. ”
Achim Steiner, director of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), said: “There are more than 50 countries on his radar that can default very quickly. ”
Steiner believes that the UN has no chance of meeting its ambitious 2030 development goals, unless there is urgent action.
The volume of lending by the private sector has made attempts to restructure or write off debt more complex than in the past.
At the time of the HIPC initiative, creditors tended to be either individual governments or multilateral organizations such as the World Bank.
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“But since the global financial crisis, many countries, especially middle-income countries, have borrowed heavily in financial markets, taking advantage of very low interest rates to finance domestic projects. ”
After the setback of the COVID-19 epidemic, low- and middle-income countries have since been hit by two other undesirable shocks: the war in Ukraine, which led to higher food and fuel prices, and the sharp increase in central bank interest rates in large Western economies.
The result is that debt servicing has become much more expensive, with many countries now frozen out of financial markets altogether.
Steiner said: "The issue is not financial but political.
The United States has mobilized $400 billion to secure Silicon Valley Bank deposits.
This is more than the developing world has received in three years.
It took the Swiss government less than 48 hours to find 100 billion Swiss francs to secure the rescue of one of its banks.
“The lesson of the recent banking crises is clear.
Rich countries can act fast enough when they want to, ” the writer concludes.
Fears of Macron ’ s politics
We turn to another Financial Times opinion piece by Alain Beatty, a trade writer, entitled “The Risks of Emmanuel Macron ’ s Strategic Insistence. ”
Macron ’ s focus on keeping a distance from both Washington and Beijing in pursuit of the EU ’ s vague “strategic autonomy ” is not an innovation among European policymakers, but geopolitical Europe enthusiasts need to recognize that the lack of unity and trust within the EU, rather than the sinister manipulation by Washington and Beijing, is the main obstacle.
“We ’ ve already seen this happen in trade policy, which is one area where the EU has long had the ability to act collectively.
In the same way that there is nothing stopping European governments from increasing military spending and playing a greater geopolitical role, the bloc can certainly increase its ability to use trade to project its strategic influence.
But while France has been keen to create new tools for intervening in trade and investment, other member states recognize that the views and interests of Paris are not necessarily those of the bloc as a whole.
“In recent years, the European Commission has carefully designed a range of trade instruments to confirm the bloc ’ s geo-economic weight.
The most politically salient is the anti-coercion tool ECI, which will allow the EU to use a wide range of trade and investment measures to retaliate against the bullying of trading partners.
France has strongly supported all this activity, and has also called for the creation of new EU central funds to pursue industrial policy.
“But the Commission will struggle to use this set of tools if there is opposition from other member states that are mindful of their export interests or distrust in using trade tools to manage a centralized strategic policy.
A few days before Macron ’ s trip, the Commission succumbed to pressure from some EU governments, including Germany, and gave member states a major role in determining the use of ECI.
Berlin instinctively avoids confrontation that could damage German exports and investments abroad.
There have also been more principled objections from liberal member states including Sweden and the Czech Republic, sceptical of attempts to politicize trade policy and the likelihood that it will be overly influenced by certain governments.
Macron inadvertently contributed to these concerns, especially as he unnerved some other EU governments two years ago with a clear orientation toward a major investment deal with China, “leaving a legacy of caution. ”
“Attempting to push a union with divergent views to adopt a single approach to a specific global issue is unlikely to produce long-term results. ”
German split on energy policy
We remain with an article by Laura Bettel, the Financial Times correspondent in Berlin, entitled “Germany is being torn apart by energy policy with the closure of nuclear plants. ”
Bethel said Germany ’ s last remaining nuclear power plants were shut down on Saturday, “marking a watershed moment in a country that has long had deep doubts about atomic energy. ”
Anti-nuclear activists hailed the shutdown of three reactors as a victory after a temporary delay following the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war that forced Berlin to look for alternatives to Russian gas.
Critics see the shutdown as an act of madness at a time when Europe ’ s energy supply remains precarious and the world is struggling to stop using fossil fuels.
After decades of anti-nuclear protests, the decisive moment came in 2011 when Chancellor Angela Merkel reversed an earlier decision to extend the life of the country ’ s nuclear plants until 2036, bringing the phase-out date to 2022.
The anti-nuclear movement in former West Germany dates back to the 1970s, when a popular campaign succeeded in stopping the construction of a nuclear power plant in the southwestern village of Weil.
The nuclear accidents at Three Mile Island in the United States in 1979 and at Chernobyl in 1986 fuelled that movement.
But German public opinion shifted after the Russo-Ukrainian War: an August 2022 poll from Der Spiegel found that 67 percent of Germans supported a five-year extension of the country ’ s nuclear plants.
41% supported the construction of new plants.
In a similar poll three decades ago, only 3% said yes.
But the German Green Party, now part of the three-way coalition government led by Olaf Schulz, only agreed to postpone the shutdown for a few months to fill any gap caused by the winter energy crisis.
“The way in which Germany has chosen to phase out nuclear power, and step back from fossil fuels as a bridging gap even as renewables increase dramatically, has been highly controversial. ”

However, the German government has not formally adopted this proposal, and the future of nuclear energy in Germany remains uncertain.

Title:

Content: Germany ’ s last three nuclear power plants may be delayed
In light of the potential energy crisis in Europe in the winter, officials revealed that Germany intends to delay the decommissioning of the last three nuclear plants in the country, although it will only temporarily prolong the life of the plants, but it marks the first time that Germany has deviated from the energy policy introduced in the millennium and has so far been enshrined by almost all parties.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) quoted senior officials as saying that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has not yet formally adopted the proposal to delay the discharge, and if it is decided to do so, there are technical and legal issues, including passing through parliament.
The cabinet is currently discussing some details, and while it will have to wait for the results of the energy demand assessment in the coming weeks to come to a conclusion, officials have revealed that everything is almost a foregone conclusion.
The last three nuclear plants in Germany were due to be decommissioned on December 31, and the government reportedly believes that a temporary delay would require two conditions: Germany is likely to suffer from a natural gas shortage and there are no safety concerns about keeping nuclear reactors in operation.
The shift in German policy underscores the shock of Russia ’ s invasion of Ukraine to European political circles, especially Germany, which has been closely tied to Russia ’ s economy and has long relied on Russian gas supplies.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he began to increase military spending, send weapons to Ukraine, break years of pacifism, supply arms to conflict zones, the latest energy policy shift, and involve the almost sacred issue of “nuclear abolition ” in German politics.
The German economy ministry, which dominates energy policy, declined to comment on the report, saying only that it all depends on the outcome of an assessment of Germany ’ s energy needs.
The remaining three nuclear power plants account for about 6% of Germany's electricity generation, and if they continue to supply power, they will not have to use natural gas or coal-fired power to fill the gap, allowing some areas to continue to have natural gas.
In some parts of Germany, huge coal-fired power plants have resumed operations in response to a potential power outage from a Russian supply cut in June, disrupting Germany ’ s progress so far in reducing carbon and fighting air pollution.
The German government has drawn up two executive orders on how to reduce natural gas and energy consumption over the next two years.
Energy authorities estimate that Germany will need to reduce its use of natural gas by 20% in order to avoid a shortage of natural gas this winter and next.
It is unclear when the German authorities may extend the discharge period, with some officials offering a few months, but the ruling Liberal Democrats believe it should be extended to 2024.
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The EU has proposed listing nuclear power as "green energy", but Germany views nuclear energy as not clean or renewable.

Title:

Content: Since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war on February 24, the US sanctions on Russia have become wider and stronger.
European countries have responded differently to near-“ unlimited ” economic and financial sanctions.
However, there are dissenting expressions of resistance to Russian oil and gas, Germany and the former Soviet Union ’ s Middle Eastern and European countries.
In August 2021, the United Nations Committee on Climate Change released a report by 234 scientists, revealing that the inescapable and increasingly serious climate crisis is a common historical undertaking that humanity must face together.
This is an important warning to EU authorities who proposed the “European Green Agreement ” in 2019, which aims to reduce carbon emissions by 55% by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, based on 1990 carbon emissions.
As a result, the European Commission proposed on December 31 last year and hoped to list nuclear power as a so-called "green energy".
However, EU member states are clearly aligned on the ultimate goal of carbon neutrality based on their respective energy mix and sources of supply, but they are quite divided on how to achieve it within the EU ’ s planned timeline.
As this proposal creates a conflict between nuclear France and anti-nuclear Germany, the European Union ’ s rotating presidency (January to June this year), French President Emmanuel Macron ’ s assertion that “nuclear energy = green energy ” has exacerbated the differences between the two countries.
For the German government, "nuclear energy is not a clean green energy, let alone renewable energy", this view directly collides with President Macron's "to reduce carbon emissions, but also reduce natural gas imports, we must take the road to nuclear energy".
"Carbon emission reduction" and "carbon neutrality", two different paths of thinking, originally just the EU "storm in the teapot", after the outbreak of the war between Russia and Ukraine, US President Joe Biden publicly asked European allies to boycott Russian imports of oil and gas, the EU's energy policy has become an important issue for economic development after the epidemic.
After the Russian-Ukrainian war, the United States hopes that the world will jointly sanction Russia's oil and gas exports. This call, in addition to the United Kingdom's decision to no longer import Russian oil and gas by the end of this year, the European Union and NATO's European countries "excluding energy sanctions" show three meanings: First, the war may affect the safety of nuclear power plants.
Second, the different energy supplies and ratios of various countries directly affect the ability to cooperate with the United States to sanction Russia.
Third, the nuclear abolition of Germany and nuclear France, after the Russian-Ukrainian war, will make the European Union's energy policy, into a new stage.
First of all, there are many nuclear power plants in Europe; before the war, no one thought that the incident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986 could happen again.
4 nuclear power plants with 15 nuclear reactors supplying half of all electricity in Ukraine.
Whether the escalation of war affects the safety of nuclear power plants is of great concern to European countries.
The situation is different in Switzerland and Belgium; five nuclear power plants have been decommissioned in Switzerland after the 2017 nuclear referendum, and one has been decommissioned in 2019.
However, in Belgium, where half of its electricity comes from nuclear power, the government of Belgium decided on March 18 to retain some of its power generation units and extend them until 2035 after the Russo-Ukrainian War.
Second, 30% of Europe ’ s crude oil and 40% of its natural gas come from Russia, and it will be difficult for renewable energy to replace it in a short period of one year, or even three or five years.
In Germany, for example, 35% of oil and 40% of natural gas come from Russia. Even if it comes from the United States (Texas) on the other side of the Atlantic, it also involves the construction of LNG (liquefied natural gas) receiving stations and the arrival of ships, and even a large number of super tankers above 320,000 tons, it is bound to not be the current Rotterdam (Netherlands), Hamburg (Germany), Anteppt (Belgium, etc. All major ports in Europe can handle the load.
And thousands of miles away from the oil tankers and LNG fleet, itself requires a large amount of fuel costs, the arrival of the transmission line of the laying, also can not be completed overnight.
After the completion of the price of oil and gas, the cost of fuel transportation must be added, and for Germany, which is the first high electricity price in Europe, the burden of the people and the operation of enterprises will be seriously affected.
Finally, Germany, which insists on eliminating nuclear weapons this year and hopes to achieve 100% green power by 2035, is a complicated situation.
After the Russo-Ukrainian War, Germany stopped reviewing Nord Stream II, which had already been built.
However, there is no political feasibility without Russia ’ s “Eastern Gas Delivery ”, as the Green Party has a joint government with the deputy prime minister and foreign minister, forced to re-use the policy option of coal burning.
Compared with the energy policy of France with nuclear energy as the main body, for Germany with a GDP of 3.8 trillion US dollars, even natural gas is only a part of the energy transformation, the pursuit of 100% renewable energy policy goals, in the year of total nuclear abolition, if it also boycotts Russian oil and gas, it will be unbearable for the economy.
The delay of the Russian-Ukrainian war, on the one hand, some countries began to think about the safety of nuclear power plants at the same time, on the other hand, due to the boycott of Russian oil and gas, will hinder the achievement of the EU's energy transformation policy goals.
And for Germany, which pursues "100% renewable energy (green power)" in 2035 and is Europe's largest economy, it is a short-term solution and may not be able to do so in the medium term, and the achievement of long-term goals still has a long way to go.
# Nuclear # Energy # Natural Gas # Russo-Ukrainian War # EU

In fact, 65 percent of Germans see nuclear power as a climate solution, and the majority of Germans support extending the operation of nuclear plants.

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Home > News > Germany lied about nuclear energy: expert

Germany lied about nuclear energy: expert

The German government misled its citizens about the possible extension of nuclear power plants, Jakub Wiech, deputy Editor-in-Chief of Energetyka24.com, wrote on Saturday. According to him, all indications are that Berlin’s aim was to close the units regardless of the risks.

He cited Simon Wakter, a Swedish nuclear engineer, who presented a series of materials on his social media showing that Berlin’s narrative on the nuclear issue was getting the truth wrong. As the journalist pointed out, Mr Wakter “has collected statements by German politicians and energy scientists from recent months, juxtaposing them.”

“In his reasoning, Mr Wakter cites, among other things, the German government’s key argument regarding nuclear fuel. Berlin claimed that extending the operation of the nuclear power plants was impossible due to the lack of contracted fuel rod supplies. However, according to Die Welt, there was a confidential meeting between ruling coalition politicians and representatives of nuclear plant operators in March 2022,” Mr Wiech wrote.

As he continued, at the meeting the latter stated that they were able to organise deliveries within a “reasonable timeframe,” however, Berlin took no action in this regard, going further into the narrative of being unable to provide fuel input.

“On exactly 8 March, the German government published a report listing the reasons why nuclear power plants can no longer operate. However, at the same time, those in power met with representatives of nuclear industry operators, who indicated solutions to the allegations made by the report,” Mr Wakter was quoted as saying by the journalist.

“As additional evidence, he points to a statement by a spokesman for Preussen Elektra, who says that the Isar nuclear power plant, one of the last three units of its type in Germany, can continue to operate beyond 31 December 2022 – and without additional supplies of nuclear fuel. Berlin’s argument in this regard has been shown to be a simple lie,” Mr Wiech wrote.

As he added, according to an opinion poll from spring 2022, the majority of Germans (65 percent) see nuclear power as part of measures aimed at meeting EU climate targets.

“So, as it turns out, the German government’s key arguments for shutting down nuclear power (lack of fuel and public opposition) turned out to be lies. One may wonder why Berlin is pushing so desperately to extinguish these units – despite the energy crisis,” Mr Wiech concluded.

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The German government has been criticized for misleading citizens about the risks of extending nuclear power, and for claiming that there is a lack of fuel for nuclear plants.

However, nuclear plant operators have offered fuel delivery solutions, and the Isar nuclear power plant can operate without additional fuel.

Overall, Germany's move away from nuclear energy is a complex and contentious issue, with significant implications for the country's energy security and climate goals.

The impact of the Russian-Ukrainian war on Germany's energy supply has added to the complexity of this issue, and the country must carefully consider its options for ensuring a stable and sustainable energy supply.

While there are valid arguments on both sides, it is clear that nuclear energy can play a role in reducing Germany's carbon emissions and improving its energy security.

Therefore, it is recommended that the German government reconsider its decision to phase out nuclear energy, and explore options for extending the operation of existing nuclear plants.


Germany's move away from nuclear energy is part of its green goal to become carbon neutral, with the country pledging to phase out nuclear power in the 2000s.

The Fukushima disaster accelerated Germany's nuclear phase-out in 2011, with the country shutting down 17 nuclear reactors.

Germany's nuclear phaseout is expected to be replaced by renewable energy, with the country aiming to increase its renewable energy share to 80% by 2050.

The German energy market is coping with the loss of nuclear power, with no sectors pushing to bring nuclear reactors back online.

However, the Russian-Ukrainian war has affected Germany's energy supply, with the country relying heavily on Russian gas supplies.

Germany aims to reduce its natural gas use by 20% to avoid a shortage, and has drawn up plans to reduce energy consumption.

The country has also delayed the decommissioning of its last three nuclear plants due to the energy shortage.

Despite this, 64% of Germans support restarting nuclear power amid the crisis, and 40% of Green Party voters support nuclear power restart.

The German government's decision to shut down nuclear power plants has been criticized, with some arguing that it was based on false information.

Overall, Germany's move away from nuclear energy is a complex issue, with the country facing challenges in replacing the lost energy source and ensuring energy security.

Germany's move away from nuclear energy is part of its green goal to become carbon neutral, with the country pledging to phase out nuclear power in the 2000s.

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Content: Home / News / World /  Germany quits nuclear power; shuts final 3 plants
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Germany has shut its final three nuclear plants, marking the end of the country's end of nuclear era that has spanned more than 60 years.

Nuclear power has long been contentious in Germany.

The move has come as Germany's eyes achieve its green goal. Steffi Lemke, Germany’s Federal Minister for the Environment and Consumer Protection and a Green Party member, "The position of the German government is clear: nuclear power is not green. Nor is it sustainable".

Closure of three nuclear plant's history:

Germany shut three plants-- Emsland, Isar 2, and Neckarwestheim, representing the culmination of a plan set in motion more than 20 years ago.

During the 1970s, a strong anti-nuclear movement emerged in Germany. The movement gave birth to the green party, which is now part of governing coalition.

However, it was in the 2000s the German government pledged to phase out nuclear power and start shutting down plants.

But in 2009, a new government came to power and it seemed brief as if nuclear would get a reprieve as a bridging technology to help the country move to renewable energy.

Then Fukushima happened. In 2011, an earthquake and tsunami caused three reactors of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant to melt down.

Three days later then-Chancellor Angela Merkel who was previously pro-nuclear, announced Germany would accelerate a nuclear phase-out, with older plants shuttered immediately.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine provided another plot twist.

Germany isn’t the only country committed to walking away from nuclear — Italy gave up the technology in 1990, and Lithuania recently struck a deal to dismantle its Soviet-era reactors, which have sat idle for over a decade. But in many advanced economies, nuclear is experiencing a resurgence.

On Sunday, Finland will start regular power production at Europe’s newest and biggest reactor. The 1,600-megawatt Olkiluoto-3 unit that faced years of delays had been planned to enter commercial production on Monday. France is planning to build at least six new reactors by 2050 as well as experiment with smaller, modular ones. The UK has similar ambitions. And even in Japan, after a decade of paralysis following the nuclear accident in Fukushima, the public is warming up to the use of nuclear power. The Japanese government wants to restart reactors that have sat idle since the disaster and to extend the lifespan of existing units.

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The Fukushima disaster accelerated Germany's nuclear phase-out in 2011, with the country shutting down 17 nuclear reactors.

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Content: 'Sustainability challenges' What Big Oil, green movement conceal from us

The US funds its military aid to Ukraine with tax dollars and some of America’s allies fund Putin’s military with purchases of his oil and gas exports. And that’s the absurdity that has come to define the Russian invasion
Representative image

NEW YORK: It has long been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. By that definition, we’re the ones detached from reality if we keep accepting what the oil industry and the green movement keep telling us over and over again and expecting a different result. The greens keep saying that because the price of wind and solar is now as cheap as, or cheaper than, fossil fuels, they’ve won the energy war. Game, set, match — welcome to the green planet.

The oil companies say — as they have in each previous energy crisis since 1973 — that the only answer to this energy crisis is the one they’ve offered for the past 49 years: drill, baby, drill. Welcome to reality. Well, they’re both wrong, and accepting the repetition of either of these tired shibboleths is hurting us economically, environmentally and geopolitically — especially, of late, geopolitically.

Because our continued addiction to fossil fuels is bolstering Vladimir Putin’s petrodictatorship and creating a situation where we in the West are — yes, say it with me now — funding both sides of the war. We fund our military aid to Ukraine with our tax dollars and some of America’s allies fund Putin’s military with purchases of his oil and gas exports.

And if that’s not the definition of insanity, then I don’t know what is. Have no illusion — these sins of the green movement and the oil industry are not equal. The greens are trying to fix a real, planet-threatening problem, even if their ambition exceeds their grasp. The oil and coal companies know that what they are doing is incompatible with a stable, healthy environment. Yes, they are right that without them there would be no global economy today. But unless they use their immense engineering talents to become energy companies, not just fossil fuel companies, there will be no livable economy tomorrow.

Let’s look at both. For too long, too many in the green movement have treated the necessary and urgent shift we need to make from fossil fuels to renewable energy as though it were like flipping a switch — just get off oil, get off gasoline, get off coal and get off nuclear — and do it NOW, without having put in place the kind of transition mechanisms, clean energy sources and market incentives required to make such a massive shift in our energy system.

It’s Germany in 2011, suddenly deciding after the Fukushima accident to phase out its 17 relatively clean and reliable nuclear reactors, which provided some 25 percent of the country’s electricity. This, even though Germany had nowhere near enough solar, wind, geothermal or hydro to replace that nuclear power. So now it’s burning more coal and gas.

A 2019 working paper for the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research found that in Germany “the lost nuclear electricity production due to the phaseout was replaced primarily by coal-fired production and net electricity imports. The social cost of this shift from nuclear to coal is approximately $12 billion per year. Over 70 percent of this cost comes from the increased mortality risk associated with exposure to the local air pollution emitted when burning fossil fuels.”

Today, the European Union is drawing up a plan to break its addiction to Russian oil and gas by 2027, but, in the meantime, Putin is laughing all the way to the bank. As CNN reported in April, citing a report by the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air: “Russian revenues from fossil fuel exports to the European Union soared during the first two months of the Ukraine invasion” — to $46.3 billion. That was more than double the value of Russian energy imported by the E.U. during the same two-month period a year earlier.

That was not because the E.U.’s volume of imports doubled. Higher oil and gas prices accounted for most of that increase. In other words, Putin starts a war that creates instability, which drives up oil prices, so he makes twice as much money exporting roughly the same amount of oil.

While Germany jumped off nuclear before it had a safety net of sufficient clean alternatives, at least it has been on a serious, path-defining quest to get them. Indeed, the whole world owes Germany a huge debt for driving down the price of solar panels and wind turbines through the subsidies and tax incentives it created. In Germany, wind turbines, solar panels and other renewables covered 54 percent of power consumption this past January and February — which is AMAZING. In 2021, renewable energy sources accounted for only about 12 percent of total U.S. energy that was consumed.

Still, the most important delusion of the green movement today — of which I am a proud, if grouchy, member — is telling itself that because the price of wind and solar technology has fallen so low now that it can beat coal and natural gas in most markets, often even without subsidies, it’s “game over” for fossil fuels. I wish. Price is only half the story.

If you can’t install the transmission lines — to get that sun and wind power from the vast open spaces where it is generated to the big urban areas where it is needed — and if you cannot set aside more land to install the scale of solar and wind farms you need to replace coal, gas or nuclear, it doesn’t matter that your renewables are cheaper on a per-kilowatt-hour basis.

And today transmission is a huge problem in the U.S. and Europe, where many people don’t want wind farms, solar fields, electricity lines — or natural gas pipelines — in their backyard. I wish this were not the case, but there is no immaculate pathway from brown energy to green energy. The road is paved with cruel trade-offs. Pick your poison — but grow up. Meanwhile, ever since the 1973 Arab oil embargo, the big oil companies have basically said in each successive crisis: Sure, we need more clean energy, but you have to understand — it doesn’t scale. Right now, we’re in an emergency, so we just need to drill more. You hear the same refrain today, which is why we’re in danger of wasting yet another oil crisis and never breaking our fossil fuel addiction.

For those oil companies sitting on large natural gas deposits — which are needed in this transition because gas is cleaner than coal — it means tapping those deposits but doing so with zero methane leakage; otherwise gas becomes as bad as coal. But it also means thinking much more seriously about how fossil fuel companies truly make the transition to become “energy companies,” not just oil companies, so they can leverage their amazing pools of engineering talent to provide more energy solutions that save the planet, not warm it.

Friedman is an Opinion Columnist with NYT©2022

The New York Times

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Germany's nuclear phaseout is expected to be replaced by renewable energy, with the country aiming to increase its renewable energy share to 80% by 2050.

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Energy transition
Germany ’ s Energiewende is a national energy system reform strategy aimed at reducing the country ’ s total energy consumption and eventually withdrawing from the use of nuclear energy.
The German “Energiewende ” energy transition has become a new term widely quoted in the English-language media, and Germany plans to increase the share of renewable energy to 80% by 2050.
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The German energy market is coping with the loss of nuclear power, with no sectors pushing to bring nuclear reactors back online.

However, the Russian-Ukrainian war has affected Germany's energy supply, with the country relying heavily on Russian gas supplies.

Title:

Content: Germany ’ s last three nuclear power plants may be delayed
In light of the potential energy crisis in Europe in the winter, officials revealed that Germany intends to delay the decommissioning of the last three nuclear plants in the country, although it will only temporarily prolong the life of the plants, but it marks the first time that Germany has deviated from the energy policy introduced in the millennium and has so far been enshrined by almost all parties.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) quoted senior officials as saying that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has not yet formally adopted the proposal to delay the discharge, and if it is decided to do so, there are technical and legal issues, including passing through parliament.
The cabinet is currently discussing some details, and while it will have to wait for the results of the energy demand assessment in the coming weeks to come to a conclusion, officials have revealed that everything is almost a foregone conclusion.
The last three nuclear plants in Germany were due to be decommissioned on December 31, and the government reportedly believes that a temporary delay would require two conditions: Germany is likely to suffer from a natural gas shortage and there are no safety concerns about keeping nuclear reactors in operation.
The shift in German policy underscores the shock of Russia ’ s invasion of Ukraine to European political circles, especially Germany, which has been closely tied to Russia ’ s economy and has long relied on Russian gas supplies.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he began to increase military spending, send weapons to Ukraine, break years of pacifism, supply arms to conflict zones, the latest energy policy shift, and involve the almost sacred issue of “nuclear abolition ” in German politics.
The German economy ministry, which dominates energy policy, declined to comment on the report, saying only that it all depends on the outcome of an assessment of Germany ’ s energy needs.
The remaining three nuclear power plants account for about 6% of Germany's electricity generation, and if they continue to supply power, they will not have to use natural gas or coal-fired power to fill the gap, allowing some areas to continue to have natural gas.
In some parts of Germany, huge coal-fired power plants have resumed operations in response to a potential power outage from a Russian supply cut in June, disrupting Germany ’ s progress so far in reducing carbon and fighting air pollution.
The German government has drawn up two executive orders on how to reduce natural gas and energy consumption over the next two years.
Energy authorities estimate that Germany will need to reduce its use of natural gas by 20% in order to avoid a shortage of natural gas this winter and next.
It is unclear when the German authorities may extend the discharge period, with some officials offering a few months, but the ruling Liberal Democrats believe it should be extended to 2024.
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Germany aims to reduce its natural gas use by 20% to avoid a shortage, and has drawn up plans to reduce energy consumption.

The country has also delayed the decommissioning of its last three nuclear plants due to the energy shortage.

Despite this, 64% of Germans support restarting nuclear power amid the crisis, and 40% of Green Party voters support nuclear power restart.

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Content: World Vision: Restarting nuclear power, dragging the German government into crisis
November 06, 2022 00: 03
Eastern Network Television
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With Germany following the NATO sanctions against Russia, the German energy crisis is deepening and leading to serious political instability.
The gold-painted sign “Made in Germany ” has been peeled off. First, the business community complained about the high price of electricity in Germany, averaging 0.37 euros per kilowatt-hour (kWh), compared with 0.18 euros in France, 0.24 euros in the United Kingdom and 0.10 euros in Hungary.
Even if the German government proposed energy subsidies, but other European governments such as Britain and France will do so, German companies still can not compete. The result is that more and more industrial products that Germany was proud of in the past, either set up factories in foreign countries or import some foreign parts to complete in Germany.
In addition, some townships began to have problems with the opening up and strengthening of thermal power generation and transmission, and now there are rare power outages, which have caused great dissatisfaction among the public.
The Minister of Economy and Deputy Prime Minister Hajbek have become the target of attacks by the industrial sector, the German opposition, and the Liberal and Social Democrats in the government, focusing on Habek, who has no economic expertise but is responsible for the environmental ideology, and the government ’ s lack of understanding and compassion for industry, and has been deceiving the three nuclear power plants.
Halbek has always stressed that the German people have long been the majority of anti-nuclear power, but the latest poll shows that 64% of the people support restarting nuclear power to increase supply and reduce electricity prices due to the energy crisis, with 40% of the Green Party voters.
In addition, the Green Party has spoken out in favor of improving climate change, but has been hiding experts ’ suggestions that turning on nuclear power could cut Germany ’ s carbon emissions by 25 million to 30 million tons a year.
In addition, Halbek stressed that the nuclear fuel rods needed for the nuclear power plant may not be available by early next year, but the expert opinion is that the old nuclear fuel rods can also be used and the nuclear power plant can be gradually opened.
Halbek stressed that it would take a long time to open the safety inspection of nuclear power, but the world-famous German Technical Supervision Association immediately hit the face, claiming that they did a comprehensive inspection in March, all three nuclear power plants are normal, as long as limited further testing and monitoring, restart is not a problem at all.
The opposition party also criticized the three-party coalition government for delaying the setting of a gas price cap until March next year. At that time, the weather in Germany has begun to warm up. As a result, the opposition party and the public demand that Habaker resign, which can be regarded as the ruling coalition's biggest crisis to date.
Ph.D., Freie Universität Berlin

The German government's decision to shut down nuclear power plants has been criticized, with some arguing that it was based on false information.

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Content: You are here
Home > News > Germany lied about nuclear energy: expert

Germany lied about nuclear energy: expert

The German government misled its citizens about the possible extension of nuclear power plants, Jakub Wiech, deputy Editor-in-Chief of Energetyka24.com, wrote on Saturday. According to him, all indications are that Berlin’s aim was to close the units regardless of the risks.

He cited Simon Wakter, a Swedish nuclear engineer, who presented a series of materials on his social media showing that Berlin’s narrative on the nuclear issue was getting the truth wrong. As the journalist pointed out, Mr Wakter “has collected statements by German politicians and energy scientists from recent months, juxtaposing them.”

“In his reasoning, Mr Wakter cites, among other things, the German government’s key argument regarding nuclear fuel. Berlin claimed that extending the operation of the nuclear power plants was impossible due to the lack of contracted fuel rod supplies. However, according to Die Welt, there was a confidential meeting between ruling coalition politicians and representatives of nuclear plant operators in March 2022,” Mr Wiech wrote.

As he continued, at the meeting the latter stated that they were able to organise deliveries within a “reasonable timeframe,” however, Berlin took no action in this regard, going further into the narrative of being unable to provide fuel input.

“On exactly 8 March, the German government published a report listing the reasons why nuclear power plants can no longer operate. However, at the same time, those in power met with representatives of nuclear industry operators, who indicated solutions to the allegations made by the report,” Mr Wakter was quoted as saying by the journalist.

“As additional evidence, he points to a statement by a spokesman for Preussen Elektra, who says that the Isar nuclear power plant, one of the last three units of its type in Germany, can continue to operate beyond 31 December 2022 – and without additional supplies of nuclear fuel. Berlin’s argument in this regard has been shown to be a simple lie,” Mr Wiech wrote.

As he added, according to an opinion poll from spring 2022, the majority of Germans (65 percent) see nuclear power as part of measures aimed at meeting EU climate targets.

“So, as it turns out, the German government’s key arguments for shutting down nuclear power (lack of fuel and public opposition) turned out to be lies. One may wonder why Berlin is pushing so desperately to extinguish these units – despite the energy crisis,” Mr Wiech concluded.

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Overall, Germany's move away from nuclear energy is a complex issue, with the country facing challenges in replacing the lost energy source and ensuring energy security.

Title:

Content: Since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war on February 24, the US sanctions on Russia have become wider and stronger.
European countries have responded differently to near-“ unlimited ” economic and financial sanctions.
However, there are dissenting expressions of resistance to Russian oil and gas, Germany and the former Soviet Union ’ s Middle Eastern and European countries.
In August 2021, the United Nations Committee on Climate Change released a report by 234 scientists, revealing that the inescapable and increasingly serious climate crisis is a common historical undertaking that humanity must face together.
This is an important warning to EU authorities who proposed the “European Green Agreement ” in 2019, which aims to reduce carbon emissions by 55% by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, based on 1990 carbon emissions.
As a result, the European Commission proposed on December 31 last year and hoped to list nuclear power as a so-called "green energy".
However, EU member states are clearly aligned on the ultimate goal of carbon neutrality based on their respective energy mix and sources of supply, but they are quite divided on how to achieve it within the EU ’ s planned timeline.
As this proposal creates a conflict between nuclear France and anti-nuclear Germany, the European Union ’ s rotating presidency (January to June this year), French President Emmanuel Macron ’ s assertion that “nuclear energy = green energy ” has exacerbated the differences between the two countries.
For the German government, "nuclear energy is not a clean green energy, let alone renewable energy", this view directly collides with President Macron's "to reduce carbon emissions, but also reduce natural gas imports, we must take the road to nuclear energy".
"Carbon emission reduction" and "carbon neutrality", two different paths of thinking, originally just the EU "storm in the teapot", after the outbreak of the war between Russia and Ukraine, US President Joe Biden publicly asked European allies to boycott Russian imports of oil and gas, the EU's energy policy has become an important issue for economic development after the epidemic.
After the Russian-Ukrainian war, the United States hopes that the world will jointly sanction Russia's oil and gas exports. This call, in addition to the United Kingdom's decision to no longer import Russian oil and gas by the end of this year, the European Union and NATO's European countries "excluding energy sanctions" show three meanings: First, the war may affect the safety of nuclear power plants.
Second, the different energy supplies and ratios of various countries directly affect the ability to cooperate with the United States to sanction Russia.
Third, the nuclear abolition of Germany and nuclear France, after the Russian-Ukrainian war, will make the European Union's energy policy, into a new stage.
First of all, there are many nuclear power plants in Europe; before the war, no one thought that the incident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986 could happen again.
4 nuclear power plants with 15 nuclear reactors supplying half of all electricity in Ukraine.
Whether the escalation of war affects the safety of nuclear power plants is of great concern to European countries.
The situation is different in Switzerland and Belgium; five nuclear power plants have been decommissioned in Switzerland after the 2017 nuclear referendum, and one has been decommissioned in 2019.
However, in Belgium, where half of its electricity comes from nuclear power, the government of Belgium decided on March 18 to retain some of its power generation units and extend them until 2035 after the Russo-Ukrainian War.
Second, 30% of Europe ’ s crude oil and 40% of its natural gas come from Russia, and it will be difficult for renewable energy to replace it in a short period of one year, or even three or five years.
In Germany, for example, 35% of oil and 40% of natural gas come from Russia. Even if it comes from the United States (Texas) on the other side of the Atlantic, it also involves the construction of LNG (liquefied natural gas) receiving stations and the arrival of ships, and even a large number of super tankers above 320,000 tons, it is bound to not be the current Rotterdam (Netherlands), Hamburg (Germany), Anteppt (Belgium, etc. All major ports in Europe can handle the load.
And thousands of miles away from the oil tankers and LNG fleet, itself requires a large amount of fuel costs, the arrival of the transmission line of the laying, also can not be completed overnight.
After the completion of the price of oil and gas, the cost of fuel transportation must be added, and for Germany, which is the first high electricity price in Europe, the burden of the people and the operation of enterprises will be seriously affected.
Finally, Germany, which insists on eliminating nuclear weapons this year and hopes to achieve 100% green power by 2035, is a complicated situation.
After the Russo-Ukrainian War, Germany stopped reviewing Nord Stream II, which had already been built.
However, there is no political feasibility without Russia ’ s “Eastern Gas Delivery ”, as the Green Party has a joint government with the deputy prime minister and foreign minister, forced to re-use the policy option of coal burning.
Compared with the energy policy of France with nuclear energy as the main body, for Germany with a GDP of 3.8 trillion US dollars, even natural gas is only a part of the energy transformation, the pursuit of 100% renewable energy policy goals, in the year of total nuclear abolition, if it also boycotts Russian oil and gas, it will be unbearable for the economy.
The delay of the Russian-Ukrainian war, on the one hand, some countries began to think about the safety of nuclear power plants at the same time, on the other hand, due to the boycott of Russian oil and gas, will hinder the achievement of the EU's energy transformation policy goals.
And for Germany, which pursues "100% renewable energy (green power)" in 2035 and is Europe's largest economy, it is a short-term solution and may not be able to do so in the medium term, and the achievement of long-term goals still has a long way to go.
# Nuclear # Energy # Natural Gas # Russo-Ukrainian War # EU