On the last day of 2021, as final preparations were being made for the New Year's Eve firework display in central Berlin, another era was drawing to a close. It was the beginning of the end of Germany's relationship with nuclear power.
Germany shut down three of its nuclear plants on December 31. The other three will be shut down by the end of the century. The country phaseout has been dramatic two decades after an agreement to eliminate nuclear power became law. Nuclear power was used for 30 percent of Germany's electricity in 2002. The percentage will be zero within a year.
Germany is not the only European nation rethinking its relationship with nuclear energy. Belgium currently gets 40 percent of its electricity from nuclear power, but will be closing its seven remaining reactors by the year 2025. Switzerland has shut down one of its five remaining nuclear power plants, the first stage of a total phaseout.
The majority of the public supported an energy strategy that subsidized renewables and banned new nuclear power plants. In the wake of the disaster in Japan, environmental concerns were raised in Switzerland, which led to the referendum. Germany was forced to shut down its nuclear program because of concerns about the disposal of nuclear waste. After previously saying she didn't agree with shutting down nuclear plants early, then-chancellor Angela Merkel announced that Germany would no longer extend the operating life of existing plants.
Advertisement
Eliminating reliable sources of low-carbon energy is the last thing we should be doing when we need to reduce emissions, according to critics of Europe's nuclear shutdowns. Nuclear is one of the safest and lowest-carbon forms of electricity generation. France has some of the lowest-carbon electricity in Europe due to the fact that 70 percent of its electricity is generated by nuclear power plants. Nuclear skeptics say that nuclear's low-carbon credentials are undermined by its high costs and long timelines involved in building new plants, as well as long-standing public concerns about safety and radioactive waste.
Europe is going to have to completely decarbonize its electricity supply in order to keep its nuclear plants running. The EU has set a goal of having net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050, and the plan relies on delivering a sizable chunk of those reductions by 2030. Critics of Germany's nuclear plan have pointed out the contradiction of abandoning nuclear energy while the country's coal-fired power plants continue to pump vast amounts of carbon dioxide and deadly particulate into the atmosphere. The path to clean electricity is littered with obstacles, and there is a lesson we can draw from Europe's nuclear dilemma.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
