Germany halts nuclear power plans

Germany has halted plans to extend the life of its nuclear power plants as the Japanese disaster spreads worry about atomic energy safety in Europe.

Neighbouring Switzerland suspended its plans to build and replace nuclear plants and Austria’s environment minister called for atomic stress tests to make sure Europe’s nuclear facilities were “earthquake-proof.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said a decision last year to extend the life of the country’s 17 nuclear power stations would be suspended for three months.

“During the moratorium, we will examine how we can accelerate the road to the age of renewable energy,” she said.

The decision also means that two older nuclear power plants will be taken off the grid shortly – at least for now – pending a full safety investigation in the wake of the explosions at a nuclear plant in Japan.

The announcement, which came ahead of three German state elections in the next two weeks, fell short of opposition calls to scrap the extension of the plants’ lifetimes altogether.

A previous government decided a decade ago to shut all 17 German nuclear plants by 2021 but Ms Merkel’s administration last year moved to extend their lives by an average 12 years.

Swiss Energy Minister Doris Leuthard said it would suspend all “blanket authorisation for nuclear replacement until safety standards have been carefully reviewed and if necessary adapted.”

The Swiss had already approved three sites for new nuclear power stations after the plans were submitted in 2008.

Alarmed by the crisis in Japan, the European Union called for a meeting of nuclear safety authorities and operators to assess Europe’s preparedness in case of an emergency.

Austria’s Environment Minister Nikolaus Berlakovich called for an EU-wide stress test to check whether nuclear power stations are “earthquake-proof,” much like European banks have been tested for their ability to cope with financial shocks.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said his government will not revise its ambitious programme of building new reactors but will “draw conclusions from what’s going on in Japan.”

Nuclear power currently accounts for 16% of Russia’s electricity generation, and the Kremlin has set a target to raise its share to one-quarter by 2030. Russia would have to build a total of 40 new reactors to fulfil the goal.

Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk also said the country would stick to its plans to build two nuclear power plants and have the first one running by 2022.

As of January, there were 195 nuclear power plants operating in Europe and 19 under construction –

Eleven in Russia, two each in Bulgaria, Slovakia and Ukraine, and one each in Finland and France.