Germany Begins Historic Nuclear Power Phase-Out

Paraphrased by:
Steve Waldrop
November 21, 2003

State, Germany-- Germany recently disconnected the first of its 19 nuclear power stations launching what it calls the world's fastest withdrawal from atomic energy. The unprecedented phase-out underscores differences between many European nations and the United States on securing future energy supplies.

Technicians at the 32-year-old nuclear plant at Stade switched it off forever at about 830 a.m. By simply pressing two buttons, Germany's second oldest power station ceased operations.

Germany is the first major industrialized nation to renounce the technology. Under a deal negotiated after years of wrangling between the government and power company bosses, all Germany's nuclear reactors are to close by 2020. The phase-out imposes a limit of 32 years on the average operational life of nuclear plants, and bans reactor construction.

It is still unclear if Germany can meet the deadline and how it will replace atomic power, which provides a third of its electricity, while also meeting commitments to cap its emissions of greenhouse gases produced by fossil fuels.

The plant's closing sparked celebrations among the environmentalist Greens, the junior party in Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's government.

"The Stade nuclear power plant was an expensive dead end," Environment Minister Juergen Trittin said before Greens party colleagues at a champagne reception in a Berlin art museum.

"Nuclear energy has no future in Germany."

Governments on both sides of the Atlantic are currently grappling with how to diversify their energy sources and reduce their reliance on crude oil from the Middle East.

But while President Bush has sought to promote nuclear power and eyed untapped oil reserves in Alaska, many European nations are looking to gas and renewable sources such as wind and solar power.

The government argues that eliminating it will spur utilities to spend billions on new, cleaner-burning gas generators as well as wind turbines and solar panels.

Trittin claimed the longer operating life of reactors in countries such as the United States, which as over 100 licensed nuclear plants, was economically shortsighted.

"That doesn't secure supplies, it just blocks necessary investments (in non-nuclear energy sources), he told German television.

Work on dismantling the 672-megawatt Stade nuclear reactor is due to begin in 2005, once its fuel has been removed.