Germany plans to phase out nuclear power

GERMANY is determined to show the world how abandoning nuclear energy can be done.

The world’s fourth-largest economy is betting billions on expanding the use of renewable energy to meet power demands instead.

The transition is being accelerated in the wake of Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant disaster, which Chancellor Angela Merkel has called a “catastrophe of apocalyptic dimensions”.

Berlin’s decision to take seven of its 17 reactors offline for three months for new safety checks has provided a glimpse into how Germany might wean itself from getting nearly a quarter of its power from atomic energy to none.

And experts say Germany’s phase-out provides a good map that countries such as the United States, which use a similar amount of nuclear power, could follow. The German model would not work, however, in countries like France, which relies on nuclear energy for more than 70% of its power and has no intention of shifting.

Nuclear power has been very unpopular in Germany ever since radioactivity from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster drifted across the country. A centre-left government a decade ago penned a plan to abandon the technology for good by 2021, but Merkel’s government last year amended it to extend the plants’ lifetime by an average of 12 years. That plan was put on hold after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami compromised nuclear power plants in Japan, and is being re-evaluated as the safety of all of Germany’s nuclear reactors is being rechecked.

Germany currently gets 23% of its energy from nuclear power — about as much as the US. Its ambitious plan to shut down its reactors will require at least €150 billion investment in alternative energy sources, which experts say will likely lead to higher electricity prices.

Germany gets 17% of its electricity from renewable energies, 13% from natural gas and more than 40% from coal. The Environment Ministry says in 10 years renewable energy will contribute 40% of its overall electricity production.

The government has been vague on a total price tag for the transition, but it said last year about €20bn a year will be needed, acknowledging that €75bn alone will be required through to 2030 to install offshore wind farms.