We need masses of climate-friendly electricity to expand supply, lower prices and supplant coal power. Nuclear power can help. The Greens should listen to Greta Thunberg and approach the FDP.
There was a lot of excitement about Greta Thunberg’s statements about nuclear power. Suddenly the Swede quoted those politicians who had previously dismissed the icon of the climate protection movement as a sick little girl. It was just too tempting to be able to parade the Greens with a Greta quote in the middle of the debate about extending the lifetime of nuclear power plants.
Thunberg hadn’t said anything sensational – and nothing new either. As early as 2019, she said that the use of low-CO2 nuclear energy could contribute to climate protection alongside renewable energies. There was also a lot of excitement back then: Greens were outraged by Thunberg’s violation of the ban list of reprehensible technologies, nuclear lobbyists were happy about the unexpected tailwind.
At that time, Thunberg was called back by those around her and put it into perspective that she personally found nuclear power too dangerous. The anti-nuclear movement was satisfied. The climate movement did not use the brief irritation to discuss the elephant in the area of ??the German energy transition: the connection between the nuclear phase-out and fossil dependence that had been ignored for years. After all, anyone who abolishes nuclear power and converts the power supply to intermittent renewables is dependent on grid security from predictable generators or storage.
In Germany, domestic lignite, imported hard coal and natural gas did this job – a good half of which came from Russia. Although it was possible to slowly reduce the fossil share in electricity generation, it was much too slow to achieve the Paris climate goals to which the federal government had committed itself in 2015. If the nuclear phase-out had been avoided and climate-friendly nuclear power plants coupled with the ramping-up renewables, things would have been different.
But neither the Greens nor the climate movement wanted to subject themselves to this kind of thinking. Because that would have meant saying goodbye to the taboo on nuclear power that holds the green party together. So a climate strategy was built around gas: 40 gigawatts of new gas-fired power plant capacity should ensure the security of renewable energies after the coal phase-out.
With this plan, the Greens went into their election campaign in 2021 – and won. Then Putin’s war knocked out the supports for the gas backup project. Consumption had to go down, gas generation had to go – just at a time when another fallback position of the energy transition collapsed, namely the tacit trust in French nuclear power supplies. But they are currently not coming because the French reactor fleet is plagued by maintenance backlogs. Of course, the neighboring country is experiencing a debacle. But is this a nuclear problem or a France problem?
The German energy transition model is now proving to be not crisis-proof. Germany is getting coal-fired power plants out of reserve, the traffic light is pointing the finger at others. Of course, the bureaucratic hurdles involved in expanding renewables are a legacy of previous governments. But doesn’t the basic concept come from Red-Green, didn’t the SPD sit at the controls for a large part of this time?
So it’s time to learn from Greta Thunberg the second time around. You can learn three things from her: the pragmatic consideration that states that the risks of nuclear power plants are tiny compared to those of coal-fired power generation. The dual strategy of expanding renewables and using nuclear to get rid of coal. You can also learn to focus on a goal instead of clinging to the means – or to 11-year-old decisions made after Fukushima. In the meantime we have learned that the accident there was not transferrable to the German nuclear power plants.
Like nuclear power plants, renewable energies are not an end in themselves. They are means to an end. And you can successfully combine both. Unlike the French, the German nuclear power plants are world champions in terms of reliability – and they are also load-following capable. Even the three remaining plants could, if they were refueled, contribute much more than the little that Robert Habeck allows them. The Economics Minister only wants to allow two instead of three systems, and even these can only be used for a maximum of three months.
Habeck is trying with all his might to tighten the conditions for the nuclear power plants so that they can (or could) actually contribute little, although it is already clear that we will face the same problem in 2023. This is also the view of the leading economic research institutes. What we need is mass: masses of climate-friendly electricity to expand supply, lower prices and displace coal-fired power. Climate and security of supply can and must be considered together. Nuclear power plants can help with that.
Nuclear energy should therefore be freed from its artificial shackles and let it do its job as Greta Thunberg demands: it should replace coal-fired power plants instead of supplementing them. But nuclear power can only do that if, instead of sitting around and shaky half-solutions, people finally get down to business. The phase-out of nuclear power must be stopped, and a lifetime extension of several years is required.
The three plants shut down in 2021 should also be put to the test again. Habeck should explore the possibilities at a round table with operators and the reactor safety commission. In total, five to six systems could save around 50 million tons of CO2 per year, which is a good twenty times as much as a speed limit would save. In return, the FDP should allow this speed limit. That would be a win-win situation for the brawlers, but above all for climate protection and security of supply.
The historian and publicist Anna Veronika Wendland has been campaigning for the further use of nuclear energy for years. She wrote her habilitation on “Nuclear Modernity”. Most recently she published the book “Nuclear Power? Yes Please!”.
