Recently, German environmental minister, Norbert Röttgen, made some interesting remarks on the remaining operationg time of Germany’s nuclear power plants. After the Schröder-Fischer government neogiated a fade-out of nuclear power until 2022, the newly elected center-right government of Merkel-Westerwelle proposed an extension for nuclear industry between 10 and 20 years beyond that date. The argument was, that renewables needed that extra time to become a susbstantial part of German energy supply. Röttgen now made it clear, that nuclear energy’s time will be up when renewables will reach about a share of 40% in Germany’s energy supply. This would equal the sum of today nuclear and renewable energy. Now comes the interesting part: according to some studies circulating in his own ministry, this will happen roughly at the beginning of the 2020s, which means that the original plans of the former government of Social Democrats and Greens, need not be changed in order to ensure a safe energy supply.
The reasons for Röttgens remarks are more or less politically motivated, opening up the conservative Christian Democrats, of which he is a member, to the Green Party and possible government coalitions in the future (the next state election in Germany is in May this year, in the largest state of Northrine-Westphalia). Regardless of that, the implications for nuclear energy and its so called “renaissance” as a carbon-neutral and sustainable energy source are significant. Nuclear energy, at least in Germany, is not needed, not even as a “bridging technology” until renewables are big enough. A controlled fade-out of nuclear energy does not endanger energy supply, quite the opposite is true: the fade-out, accompanied by a regulatory framework like Germany’s renewable energy law, is the one safe road to a truly sustainable energy infrastructure.
It is interesting to note, that this contradicts the moves from several OECD countries back towards nuclear e.g. the UK and the US. This is even more irritating since the only nuclear power plant built in Europe in recent years (in Finland) now exceeded by far the originally planned installation costs. In addition, a study by Citibank on nuclear energy, who are surely no Green muesli eaters, gives a clear result: nuclear energy is uneconomic, it does not pay off the huge investments needed.
Taken all of this together, not to mention the problems with nuclear waste, there is no single argument in favor of nuclear energy and surely no sign of a “nuclear renaissance”. The future of sustainable energy production (and consumption) is in renewables without a dangerous (and cost-intensive) detour via nuclear energy.