Nuclear Power's Comeback in Germany

Even with oil prices and greenhouse gasses on everyone's mind, Germany still says no to nukes—for now

Put a monkey in front of a keyboard, and he might come up with something like this: Biblis A, Neckar-Westheim 1, Brunsbüttel, Biblis B, Isar 1, Unterweser, Philippsburg 1. The names, though, are far from meaningless. All of them are nuclear power plants in Germany—seven of the 17 still in operation in the country. And all seven of them are scheduled to be shut down between 2010 and 2012 and taken off the electricity grid.

The reason for the planned shut downs is clear—they are part of the country's legislated shift away from atomic energy. But just what that means for Germany's energy supply only becomes apparent after looking at a small graphic that Stephan Kohler, chief executive of the Germany Energy Agency, keeps in a plastic folder in his office. The graphic estimates trends in both consumption and production of electricity in Germany's near future. Whereas the consumption line gently and consistently falls, the production line climbs slightly for the next couple of years—and then it plunges. The edge of the cliff depicted in the diagram coincides with 2010, just when the 126,036 gigawatt hours of electricity produced by Biblis, Neckar-Westheim and Brunsbüttel disappear.

It is a date with energy policy destiny that has been facing Germany ever since the government of former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, together with his coalition partners from the Green Party, passed a law in 2000 mandating that the country turn its back on nuclear power. The idea was that, in the intervening years, electricity produced with renewable energy technologies would grow to the point that the shift away from nuclear would hardly be noticed.

That, though, is looking increasingly unlikely. Despite a decade of massive investment and generous programs established to promote wind, solar and biomass power generation, green energy sources make up just 14 percent of the country's energy supply. Even if that were to double in the near future, the lion's share of Germany's energy consumption would have to come from elsewhere. Without nuclear power, "elsewhere" in Germany necessarily means coal-fired power plants. But in a world with a rapidly warming climate caused by massive emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere by, among other sources, coal-fired power plants, such a scenario is decidedly unappetizing.

Well Over 100 Reactors

Indeed, even as Germany positions itself as a world leader in the fight against global warming, a major problem is brewing right in its own back yard. How to produce enough clean energy to satisfy the country's needs? It is a conundrum that many countries around the world are facing as well. But outside of Germany, a consensus is slowly developing that nuclear energy may very well be the answer. After decades of hesitancy, more and more countries are turning back toward the atom with well over 100 reactors either already under construction or in the planning stages.

And in Berlin? Officially, nothing has changed. Chancellor Angela Merkel and her coalition government agreed—when patching together the so-called "grand coalition" pairing Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) with the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) in 2005—that the subject was taboo. But with the world slowly coming to the realization that nuclear energy could provide at least an interim answer to global warming, pressure is growing. And the voices in favor of revisiting the 2000 phase-out decision are becoming louder.

"The chancellor has noticed that the discussion about the use of atomic energy has been re-energized" said Merkel spokesman Thomas Steg recently. Her party is willing to go even further. "For the foreseeable future," party leadership recently wrote in a policy paper on global warming, "the contribution of nuclear energy to the production of electricity in Germany is irreplaceable."