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Germany Will Phase Out Nuclear Power by 2022

The German government has decided to phase out all nuclear power in the country in the next 11 years. Although the country is ending nuclear power, other sustainable power goals remain in place. "We don’t only want to renounce nuclear energy by 2022, we also want to reduce our CO2 emissions by 40 percent and double our share of renewable energies, from about 17 percent today to then 35 percent," said Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Germany currently has 17 nuclear power plants, which produce about one-quarter of the country's electricity, all of which will be closed down by 2022. Germany was already aiming to phase out nuclear power by 2034; the current announcement mostly advances the timetable. Germany already has a sizable percentage of its capacity from renewable sources, but those will need to greatly expand to offset the loss of the nuclear plants.

In addition to increasing its share of renewables, Germany also plans to invest in new natural gas plants to provide the capacity necessary to avoid shortfalls in power production. Increasing efficiency and reducing consumption are also key in the overall plan to meet German energy production needs for the next few decades.

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written by Online Home Inspector, June 01, 2011
I fully support this initiative and hope they can set an example for the world. Meanwhile we will remain politically paralyzed and continue to belch toxins into our air and water and get tangled up in un-winnable foreign wars to appease lobbyists.
written by Personal Home Inspector, June 01, 2011
written by Marcela, June 01, 2011
I hope that this idea is soon followed by other countries.
Welldone Germany important step forward
written by Green Budget Living, June 01, 2011
I think what Germany has committed to is an important first step in consigning nuclear power stations to the past. I live in Scotland and the Scottsih government has made a very public pledge to not allow any further development of nuclear power stations, only decomissioning activities, despite nuclear power being a cornerstone of the Uk government's plan to maintain electrical baseload. The view here is that by doing so, the imperative for renewable energy sources becomes much greater and will therefore get much more attention and investment.
written by Cam, June 01, 2011
Germany has paid-up nuclear plants which produce minimal waste and no direct carbon while providing base-load power. They aren't in an earthquake prone part of the world. They've got a stable and secure government. Why on earth would they take these plants offline other than Fukushima induced panic? How can anyone applaud removing existing near-zero carbon sources of power and replacing them with hydrocarbon burning plants?
written by Jay Banks, June 01, 2011
It looks like the increased popularity of Germany's anti-nuclear Green Party surprised Merkel. Funny to see how fear of losing power can make you take the right decisions.
written by noob, June 02, 2011
de you support replacing a cleaner source of energy (nuclear) with a dirtier one (natural gas)?!
written by Home Inspector Training, June 02, 2011
written by Deals, June 02, 2011
I think it's too difficult to overcome the pressure of CO2 in the country after huge population and pollution.
written by Slowking, June 04, 2011
First of all one should note that this is really not the germans running scared, how it's often portrayed in US and UK media.
There were concrete plans to have all nuclear shut down around that time, since the early 2000s. Those were made by the back then green party / social party government. The right wing party government just reversed these plans a short time ago.
Now that the outcry of the people got louder and louder they finally stop buckeling to nuclear lobbyists and went back to the original plan.

Futhermore germany does not get one quarter of it's electric energy from nuclear. It's much less, since most of the time about half the nuclear plants are shut down for maintenence. Really it's more like 15%. And we still export energy to other countrys, even with all those plants switched off at the moment, just fyi.

It's also false that the gas plants will replace the nuclear plants. Those will be offset by renewables by 2022. The gas plants are there to replace old cole power plants, to secure the base load.

"All paid off" nuclear power plants really don't mean anything to the population in terms of energy or energy costs. They only mean big profits for the energy companys.
For the people it means that there are old nuclear power plants running that you could fly into with a sporting aircraft to produce a catastroph. That's right you wouldn't even need a jet to do it.
Not to mention that incidents are piling up in these old things anyway.

I guess you are american. A lot of americans really love the free market. Don't know if you are one of them but the odds are probably good.
Did you know that no insurance firm would ever insure a nuclear power plant? If those are so save why wouldn't they? It would be easy money. They would never have to pay out.
The answer is simple. Because they are not save. A big Tschernobyl or Fukushima like incident might only occur every 20 years, but when it does, the damages are massive. In a small country like germany such a big percentage of land would be unuseable, that the economy would collapse. No ensurance company could ever pay those damages.
The free market has spoken. Nuclear power is not save.

And minimal waste? Do you have any idea how much it costs to transport and properly store this minimal waste? I give you a hint: It's a lot.
Besides do the energy companys pay for that? No the tax payers do. Otherwise nuclear power would be the most expensive power there is. So nuclear power is socialism.
I always found it funny how republicans can ramble against socialism, but in the same breath promote nuclear power.
written by Jacob, June 06, 2011
One word: waste. Nuclear waste is terribly volatile and takes thousands upon thousands of years to degrade into safer isotopes. Germany still does not have a safe storage site for nuclear waste. One fear of nuclear waste is that we will accidentally destroy the surrounding environment with it. Water is a great conductor of nuclear waste. Once it's in water, everything in contact with it has radiation and nothing is safe to consume for fear of bio-magnification. Another problem with nuclear waste is the fear of terrorist attacks. One could simply bomb one of the many insecure nuclear waste storage sites and wreak havoc upon the surrounding land when the radiation is released and spread. Nuclear power is just way too dangerous with our current technology. There are so many more alternatives that are just as clean and far less dangerous.

In addition to all of this, some scientists argue that nuclear power has a negative net energy cycle. Producing power from nuclear energy is not a 1-step process. The uranium must be mined (destroying the surrounding land and risking contamination), transported, processed to remove impurities, transported, finally used in a reactor and then transported once again to be unsafely stored. The only reason that nuclear energy appears attractive in the US is because it is subsidized heavily. This makes the net energy cycle look positive.
written by Brett, January 26, 2012
A laudable goal and a positive step towards cleaner safer energy
Account Executive
written by ID Card Printer, April 10, 2013
Phasing out nuclear sooner rather than later would even be better. Which country is next in line?

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