The door to some sort of extension appeared to be opening a crack after the finance ministry in mid-July announced a new “stress test” for the security of electricity supplies. It is supposed to take into account a tougher scenario than a previous test, which ended in May, that supplies were secured. Since then, Russia has cut gas supplies through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany to 20% of capacity amid tensions over the war in Ukraine. He cited technical issues that Germany says are just an excuse for a political power play. Russia recently accounts for about a third of Germany’s natural gas supply, and there are concerns that it could turn off the tap entirely. The Union’s main opposition bloc has increasingly called for the life of nuclear plants to be extended. Similar calls are coming from the smallest party in Chancellor Olaf Solz’s coalition government, the pro-business Free Democrats. “Many are talking about not decommissioning safe and climate-friendly nuclear plants, but if necessary they will be used until 2024,” Finance Minister Christian Lindner, leader of the Free Democrats, told Sunday’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper. He called on Economy Minister Robert Hambeck, who is in charge of energy, to stop using natural gas to generate electricity. Calls to expand the use of nuclear power are uncomfortable for the other two ruling parties, Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats and, especially, Habeck’s environmentalist Greens. Opposition to nuclear power is a cornerstone of the Greens’ identity. a Social Democrat-Green government started Germany’s exit from nuclear energy two decades ago. A government made up of then-Chancellor Angela Merkel’s centre-right Union and the Free Democrats set out the current form of the nuclear exit in 2011, shortly after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. It calls for the three reactors still operating to be shut down at the end of December. Habeck has long argued that keeping these reactors would be legally and technically complicated and would do little to address the problems caused by gas shortages, arguing that natural gas is not so much a factor in electricity generation as for the supply of industrial processes and the provision of heating. “We have a heating problem or an industry problem, but not an electricity problem — at least not across the country in general,” he said in early July. In the first quarter of this year, nuclear power plants accounted for 6% of Germany’s electricity generation and natural gas for 13%. Lindner said that “we must work to ensure that the electricity crisis does not come on top of the natural gas crisis.” Some Greens have signaled a degree of openness in recent days to allowing one or more reactors to continue operating for a short time with their existing fuel rods if the country faces a power emergency — though not for much longer. Others are unimpressed by the idea. That “is also a life extension” for reactors that would require a change to existing law, “and we won’t touch it,” said senior Greens MP Juergen Trittin – Germany’s environment minister when the nuclear phase-out was first drawn up abolition. Saturday’s Tagesspiegel newspaper. Critics say that’s not enough anyway. Opposition leader Friedrich Merz urged the government to immediately order new fuel rods for the remaining reactors. Senior opposition lawmaker Alexander Dobrindt called for three reactors already shut down to be reactivated and told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper that “in this situation, life extensions for nuclear power of at least five more years are possible.” And Scholz’s position? Government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann said last week that she was awaiting the results of the “stress test”, which are expected in the coming weeks. The government has already given the go-ahead for utilities to fire up 10 idle coal-fired and six oil-fired power plants, while it also plans to pave the way for the reactivation of dormant lignite-fired plants. Another 11 coal-fired power plants scheduled to close in November will be allowed to continue operating.
