Why is Germany phasing out nuclear power? Why end nuclear power now?



In light of the energy crisis, has Germany reconsidered its plans to phase out nuclear energy?

Germany had planned to stop nuclear power in December 2022, shortly after Russia's war in Ukraine triggered a European energy crisis that sparked debate about the future of the technology in Germany. Proponents of nuclear power have called for a complete reassessment or at least a delay in the withdrawal. Dwindling supplies of Russian gas have sparked widespread concerns about energy security, while rapidly rising energy prices have put pressure on household and business budgets.

With only a small fraction of natural gas used to generate electricity (mainly for heating buildings and industry), the extent to which nuclear power can help solve the crisis is hotly debated. Flexible gas-fired power plants are typically only used to provide electricity during specific peak periods of demand, which nuclear plants are not designed to do. However, some stakeholders stress that every kilowatt-hour of gas saved is important, while others argue that nuclear power may be necessary to provide grid stability during the winter months.

The German government commissioned so-called "stress tests" in the summer of 2022 to determine whether it made sense to keep the remaining reactors running for a few more months in the winter of 2022/23 to ensure grid stability. The study found that a limited uptime extension makes sense to support power production. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has finally decided to extend the operation of the country's three remaining nuclear power plants by about three months, until April 15, 2023, as a backup during the crisis. The government has since ruled out any further extension, with the plant's operator saying it would be technically impossible to keep the plant running longer, even if it were politically desirable.

02. How did Germany phase out nuclear energy?

The belief that nuclear power should not be part of Germany's energy mix is an old one and deeply rooted in German society. After years of protests against nuclear power plant projects in multiple places, along with the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear accident in the United States and the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the anti-nuclear movement resulted in no new commercial reactors being built in Germany after 1989.

When the Social Democrats and Greens took over from the Conservative government in 1998, they forged a "nuclear consensus" with the big utilities that operated the plants. By giving them a certain share of power generation, the last plant will close in 2022.

The Ministry of Environment (BMUV), which is also responsible for nuclear safety, confirmed at the end of March that nuclear power generation would end on the planned date, saying that this would not affect the country's energy supply security in winter 2023/2024. However, dismantling the reactors and deciding on the final repository for radioactive waste is a challenging task that could take decades to complete, while the many ageing reactors in operation in neighbouring countries continue to pose a serious safety risk for Germany and Europe as a whole, it added.

In 2010, the new Conservative government of Angela Merkel amended the agreement, extending the operating time of seven nuclear plants by eight years and the remaining 10 by 14 years. But after the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan in March 2011, Merkel's cabinet reversed course and mothballed Germany's oldest reactors for three months before proposing to shut them down permanently and phase out the remaining nine reactors by 2022.

03. Why is the phase-out of nuclear energy a contributing factor to the energy transition

Each country initially had different reasons for committing to climate action to reduce the use of fossil fuels and to sign the Paris Agreement in 2015, which is supposed to steer all countries on a path to net zero emissions. For some, it's about securing domestic power supplies in the form of renewable energy. For many, it only became a viable idea after the price of wind and solar installations dropped dramatically, while others took action in response to a brewing climate crisis and international pressure.

The starting point of Germany's energy transition, and the idea of climate protection that came with it, was the rise of the anti-nuclear movement and the Green Party in the late 1970s. As opposition to nuclear power grew and support for the Green Party (which entered government in 1998), so did public awareness of environmental and climate protection.

"It is true that at the beginning of Germany's energy transition, our main argument was about nuclear energy," Rainer Baake, one of the architects of Germany's first nuclear exit legislation and a former state secretary at the Energy Ministry, told Clean energy Wire. "But at the same time as phasing out nuclear power, we enacted the Renewable Energy Act (EEG) in 2000. With this law, we hope to prevent phasing out nuclear energy from leading to an increase in fossil power generation and a burden on the climate. In fact, much more has been achieved in the past two decades. Today, renewables generate much more electricity in Germany than nuclear power plants did in 2000, "said Baake, who is now managing director of the Climate Neutral Foundation.

The first Renewable Energy Act, which provided for on-grid subsidies to wind and solar producers, contributed to a boom in renewables, sharply lowering the price of new technologies and growing the share of renewables in Germany's electricity consumption from 6 percent in 2000 to 46 percent in 2020. This shift in electricity supply - known as the "energy transition" - has raised awareness and ambition for the decarbonisation of other sectors, and led to the 2020 decision to phase out coal power by 2038 at the latest. Germany's new government wants to bring that end date forward to 2030.

04. Why doesn't Germany phase out coal before nuclear?

Germany has often been criticised for phasing out low-carbon nuclear power, while the proportion of CO2-heavy coal in its energy mix remains relatively high. There are several reasons and explanations for this.

The decision to phase out nuclear power is also the starting point for decarbonizing the country's electricity supply, mainstreaming renewables and lowering their prices until they are cheaper than new conventional power plants. While most countries made their decision to quit coal after the 2015 Paris Agreement (and several others committed to ending coal use at the UN climate summit COP26 in 2021), the early 2000s or 2010s were a very early period for Germany to stop using historically familiar, domestically produced and reliable sources of energy. Renewable energy sources were not yet available to provide such affordable and secure energy.

Since the decision to phase out nuclear power in 2000, the share of coal in Germany's electricity generation has fallen from 43 percent in 2011 (when seven nuclear power plants were closed) to 23.4 percent in 2020. No new coal plants have been planned/built since 2007.

However, if a country that considers itself a pioneer of climate action still has some of the largest emissions from power stations in Europe, that does paint a pretty dubious picture. However, Stefan Rahmstorf, head of Earth system analysis at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, noted: "Emissions from the energy sector have been cut in half since 1990 [...] It is other sectors that have so far failed to meet their targets."

The campaign against fossil power plants led Germany to agree in 2020 to phase out coal power generation by 2038. Following the country's decision to bring forward its net zero target date to 2045, the new government has said it plans to bring forward the coal exit "ideally" to 2030.

Simon Energiewende, Germany director of Agora Energiewende, a German think tank. "The rate of reduction in Germany is too slow to be simply linked to the timing of the phase-out of nuclear and coal," Muller told Clean Energy Network. "After a few years of boom, the government let the renewable energy market collapse. With the more ambitious expansion of renewables, the share of CO2-free power generation is now likely to be even higher, "he said.

Another difference between coal and nuclear power is that, despite being enthusiastically embraced by the major political parties in the 1960s, nuclear power was a relatively new phenomenon that did not have a solid base in society and was quickly discredited by accidents and protests. Coal mining, on the other hand, has been entrenched in several German states for 200 years. It used to have a large (and often proud) workforce, wield considerable political influence, and was often a major employer and economic stronghold of a region. It is (or, in the case of hard coal, was) a domestically available energy source.

These are among the reasons why it will be easier for Germany to initiate a withdrawal from nuclear power before phasing out coal.

05. Will Germany emit more CO2 as a result of phasing out nuclear power?

Some climate activists, researchers and pro-nuclear groups argue that Germany could have prevented carbon dioxide emissions if it had decided to reduce coal electricity consumption before it stopped using nuclear power. "From a pure emissions perspective, it has always been a questionable idea to shut down German nuclear power plants before the end of their life," Hans Koenig, project leader commissioned by Aurora Energy Research, told Bloomberg.

The Federal Environment Agency uses the following emissions estimates: onshore wind at 10 g CO2e/KWH, solar PV at 67 g CO2e/KWH, nuclear at 68 g CO2e/KWH, natural gas at 430 g CO2e/KWH and lignite at more than 1 kg CO2e/KWH.

Pro-nuclear activists Rainer Moormann, a former physical chemist at the Julich Research Center, and Anna Veronica Vunderland of the Held Institute for the History of Eastern Central Europe in Marburg proposed in 2020 to keep the last six plants operating, Would enable Germany to close all its lignite plants in North Rhine-Westphalia - by reversing the decision to shut down the last six reactors in 2021 and 2022 and keep them running until the end of the decade, Germany's total CO2 emissions could be reduced by 10 percent.

Economists at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) concluded in a recent paper that "the reduction in nuclear energy will temporarily lead to an increase in the use and import of fossil energy sources, which will increase CO2 emissions in the short term." However, as renewable energy accelerates, these emissions should decrease rapidly." In the short term, nuclear power will indeed be replaced by fossil fuel power plants and imports. According to the DIW, a 15 terawatt hour (TWh) increase in imports would increase emissions by about 40 million tonnes of CO2. Other studies have shown that, in the context of the overall cap of the European Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), the rise in German emissions would be compensated for by the fall in emissions from other countries, keeping overall emissions stable while seeing a small increase in the price of CO2 allowances.

Overall, renewables now prevent carbon emissions better than nuclear power, as physicist Amory B. Lovins, an adjunct professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University, concluded in a Bloomberg op-ed: "Renewables increase supply, displacing as much carbon every 38 hours as nuclear emits in an entire year."

06. How can Germany achieve net zero emissions without nuclear power?

The energy transition in Germany's power sector has been transformed into a comprehensive plan to decarbonize the entire economy and achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045. With nuclear power and coal fading out of sight by the end of the decade, the new government - sticking to the previous administration's climate targets - is focusing on the growth of renewable energy. The goal is for renewables to account for 80% of electricity demand by 2030 (this is expected to grow). Several "German net Zero" studies have shown that a system based on renewable energy is possible.

The government acknowledges that a fleet of flexible (and hydrogen-ready) natural gas plants is needed to run a stable power system. According to calculations by research institute EWI, 21 GW of lignite capacity and 25 GW of hard coal capacity will be shut down between 2019 and 2030. According to the German energy industry association BDEW, existing excess capacity, new flexibility options and efficiencies, and increased renewable energy capacity will mean that not all of this controllable power plant capacity will need to be replaced. "But the early phase-out of coal means we will need an additional 17 gigawatts of gas-fired capacity," said Kerstin Andreae, head of BDEW. That capacity can't run 24/7. Instead, it will be used during times of peak demand or when there is little wind or sunshine.

When there is less wind and less sunshine, Germany will have to tie itself more closely to its neighbors to exchange (renewable) electricity. It will need to upgrade its power grid. To supply power stations and industry, large amounts of hydrogen will be needed and imported.

07. Why did Germany not choose an energy system with both renewable and nuclear energy?

Nuclear energy advocates describe the technology as a reliable source of energy that can help secure supplies when wind and sunlight are low. "We need reliable, round-the-clock energy to complement renewables," James Hansen, a climate scientist at Columbia University, said while attending a pro-nuclear climate demonstration in Berlin.

But German energy experts have expressed doubts about whether nuclear power can best complement volatile renewables. At the same time, most of France's nuclear power plants are out of service in the summer of 2022 due to low river levels and delays in maintenance works, casting doubt on the unshakable reliability of nuclear reactors. "A climate-friendly power system dominated by weather-dependent wind and solar farms requires a lot of flexibility to balance fluctuating supply with fluctuating demand. Nuclear power plants are technically and operationally designed for as stable a production as possible. This is the exact opposite of what wind and solar need as partners, "said Rainer Baake, a former state secretary at the Ministry of Energy.

08 Will Germany rely on importing (nuclear) electricity from abroad?

Critics say Germany's decision to abandon nuclear energy is hypocritical because it will continue to accept nuclear power from France or Belgium. Germany has power cable connectors with its European neighbors and has been a net exporter of electricity for many years. In addition to nuclear and coal generation, Germany also accounts for a growing share of renewable power generation, and buyers in Europe's internal electricity market like to source renewable power generation because it is cheap. As nuclear and coal power are withdrawn, Germany will lose some of its excess installed capacity and import more electricity from neighboring countries, which also have a growing share of renewables, but it will not be alone. Over the past few years, France has imported a large amount of electricity from Germany to keep its nuclear power system stable.