Germany Announced The Closure Of All Nuclear Power Stations &Nbsp Before 2022; No Longer Using Nuclear Power.

Sheng Yuan

Under the pressure of all parties, the Merkel administration energy policy Once again, it plans to close all nuclear power plants by 2022. Germany will also be the first major industrial country to stop using nuclear energy.

Public opinion

The German environment minister has announced that most of the nuclear power plants will be closed by 2021. In response to possible power shortages, the other 3 relatively new nuclear power plants are postponed until 2022. After Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant accident, Germany has 7 oldest. Nuclear power plant The operation of the 7 nuclear power stations has been stopped. The other two nuclear power stations will be closed immediately except for a set of spare parts in 2013.

Stopping the use of nuclear power is a major reversal of Merkel's energy policy. When he ran for re-election in 2009, Merkel promised to extend the life of nuclear reactors. But in March this year, the East Japan earthquake caused Nuclear crisis After that, the German Green Party's opposition to nuclear power increased its public support rate, which also led to a "U" transition in Germany's nuclear energy policy.

Merkel once accused 23 days of this month that the Japanese Fukushima nuclear disaster led to its own Christian Democratic Party being squeezed to third in the regional parliamentary elections. After the Japanese nuclear crisis, the CDU did not greet the greens in the local council elections in Baden Foton, Germany in March. In the election not to be held in Meizhou on the 22 th of this month, the greens unexpectedly surprised the CDU, ranking second. "In the history of Germany, we first exceeded the CDU in the local parliamentary elections." The green party leader Roth said Fukushima nuclear crisis is one of the reasons.

Germany has held 5 local elections this year, and all the CDU failed. The fear of nuclear threats in Germany has led to a 180 degree shift in Merkel's attitude towards nuclear power development. In March, the Merkel Administration ordered the suspension of nuclear energy development and closed the 7 longest running nuclear power plants.

Germany passed the bill on "phasing out of nuclear power" in 2002. According to the bill, all nuclear power plants in Germany will be closed by 2020. But in October last year, the German government proposed a plan to extend the operation period of the nuclear power plant and was approved by the Federal Parliament. According to the extension plan, the duration of the use of 17 nuclear power plants will be extended for an average of 12 years.

"The people want to know the specific date of the closure of the nuclear power plant, and we will study the problem." Merkel said the government will set a timetable and will make a decision at the cabinet meeting in June 6th.

Corporate opposition

The news that Germany shut down the domestic nuclear power plants has brought notable pressure on German public utilities. Germany's two major utility stocks, EON AG and RWE AG, both fell by more than 2 percentage points in the DAX index, while RWE fell to its lowest level since December 2004. The company opposed the reversal of Merkel's energy policy, warning that not only will businesses face increased costs, but Germany will also have less reliable sources of energy.

According to the German Ministry of economic data, nuclear power accounted for 22% of the total electricity supply in Germany in 2010, while more than 40% came from coal power generation and the rest came from renewable energy and natural gas. It is estimated that the utilization ratio of renewable energy in the next 10 years is expected to account for 40%. According to the German Electricity Department, there were 2000 megawatts of electricity consumption in southern Germany last winter.

According to the German government's forecast, the short-term cost will be greatly increased in order to complete the upgrading of energy, at least 150 billion euros will be needed, half of which will be used for wind development in coastal areas. The German renewable energy industry association said its members plan to spend 200 billion euros in 2020 to develop wind and solar power generation.

Germany is Europe's largest energy market. Last year Germany was still a net energy exporter to France. "It's hard to say how they will replace nuclear energy." The world's largest nuclear device manufacturer, Areva SA CEO of France, believes Anne Lovejon is not sure that there are enough Poland coal mines and that coal combustion produces carbon dioxide. Alternative energy sources are not stable. I think they will learn from Australia: importing nuclear power from neighboring countries.