The German cabinet, following the lead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, has approved continued operation of the country’s final three operating nuclear power plants, in the face of continuing problems in receiving Russian natural gas. The three units can continue running until 15 April 2023 at the latest, demonstrating that Germany has not jettisoned its long-term plan to completely phase out nuclear power.
The three extended nukes — Emsland, Isar 2 and Neckarwestheim 2 – where scheduled to shut down in December, the culmination of a plan launched by former Chancellor Angela Merkle in 2011, shortly after the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe in Japan. Germany has had a long and strong anti-nuclear movement, led by the Green Party (Die Grünen). In the early 1970s, large demonstrations forced the government to abandon plans for a new plant at Whyl. German nuclear opposition rose in 1986, when radioactivity from the Chernobyl explosion in the Soviet Union’s Ukraine territory was detectable in Germany.
At the time of the Fukushima destruction and explosions, a result of a giant tsunami, Germany had 17 operating reactors. When Merkel announced that Germany would shut down all reactors by the end of 2022, eight mostly older plants shut down immediately. At the end of 2021, six plants were in operation, providing some 13% of Germany’s electric power.
Emsland is a 1,363-MW Siemens pressurized water reactor. Construction began in 1982 and the unit went into commercial service in 1988, owned and operated by the RWE utility. It has a lifetime capacity factor of 93%. Isar 2 is a 1,485-MW Framatome PWR, operated by PreussenElektra and jointly owned by PreussenElektra (75%) and Stadtwerke Munchen (25%). Neckarwestheim 2 is a 1,400-MW Siemens PWR that went into service in 1988, operated by EnBW. It has a lifetime capacity factor of 87%.