Merkel U-turn as Germany to quit nuclear power

GERMAN Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition declared yesterday it would shut all German’s nuclear reactors by 2022, in a policy reversal drawn up in a rush after the Fukushima disaster in Japan.

The coalition, sensitive to accusations it may increase dependence on highly polluting brown coal, said it planned to cut power use by 10% by 2020. But Merkel may be hard pressed to present the plan as anything but a political defeat at the hands of Social Democrat and resurgent Green rivals.

The proposal may be even more ambitious than the nuclear exit planned when the Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens were in power in 2000. It takes eight of 17 nuclear plants offline now and six by 2021.