Even if there is no final decision yet, there are more and more indications that the southern German reactors will continue to operate. The announcement from Berlin does not really satisfy anyone in this country.
Munich/Berlin (dpa/lby) – After the announced extended operation of the German nuclear reactors Isar 2 and Neckarwestheim until April 2023, neither the critics of nuclear power nor their supporters are satisfied in Bavaria. “Germany needs nuclear power to be extended, by the end of 2024. Not in slices,” said Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) on Wednesday shortly before the conference of state leaders in Berlin. Although the stretching operation is a positive insight, it is not a solution to the German energy problem. For the entire crisis, more energy is needed from all nuclear power plants, not just from the two reactors in southern Germany.
On the other hand, the chairman of the Bund Naturschutz in Bayern, Richard Mergner, explained that the stretching operation could only “compensate to a very small extent” for a power shortage, but at the same time the risks that emanated from continued operation were considerable. Mergner warned that there would eventually be more runtime extensions. “Nuclear power plants are a constant safety risk, and this risk is significantly increased by stretching operations.”
Economics Minister Hubert Aiwanger (Free Voters) explained via Twitter that the running times needed to be extended beyond the winter of 2023/24: After the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline could fail due to sabotage, the energy supply could become even more difficult in the winter after next. “Therefore, if possible, prepare all 6 nuclear power plants for 2023/24, order fuel rods now, as the delivery time is 12 months.”
After the announcement by Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens), the Bavarian Environment Minister Thorsten Glauber (Free Voters), who is responsible for nuclear supervision, quickly called for facts: “Now clarity is finally needed for operators and supervisory authorities. Then the further steps can be prepared,” he said the German Press Agency in Munich. It is high time that reason came to the federation. Germany needs its own reliable power sources, “which also includes Isar 2. Not as an ad hoc cold reserve, but in an orderly stretch operation. Nuclear power plants are not emergency power generators.”
IHK General Manager Manfred Gößl also took this line. Habeck’s statements are too vague and continue to leave uncertainty in the Upper Bavarian economy. Without an extension to 2024, the discussion would otherwise come up again in a few months.
Habeck assumes that the Isar 2 and Neckarwestheim nuclear power plants will “probably” remain online in the first quarter of 2023. On Tuesday in Berlin, he made it clear that the development on the French electricity market was significantly worse than forecast. At the beginning of September, Habeck announced the plan for a so-called operational reserve for the two nuclear power plants in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. A final decision on the continued operation of the nuclear power plant has not yet been made, according to Habeck. It must fall “in December at the latest”. The legislative process should be completed by the end of October.
Green parliamentary group leader Ludwig Hartmann explained that Habeck is now “correctly taking the next steps on the way to the emergency reserve”. December will show whether reserve operation will be necessary. After the communication from the nuclear power plant operators had caused a lot of confusion, they “finally honestly put the technical possibilities on the table. That was a long overdue step to prepare the nuclear power plant’s emergency reserve for waterproofing.”
