Germany’s government has confirmed plans to go through with the shutdown of the country’s remaining nuclear power plants this weekend, cutting off a key source of energy despite the loss of Russian natural gas amid the Ukraine crisis.
The last three reactors – Emsland in northwest Germany and Isar 2 and Neckarwestheim 2 in the south – will be idled for good on Saturday, completing a phase-out of nuclear power that began in 2002 and was accelerated after Japan’s Fukushima disaster in 2011. The shutdown order had been extended from the end of last year to April 15 amid concerns over a potential winter energy crisis, but Chancellor Olaf Scholz ruled out seeking another extension.
Germany’s nuclear power industry accounted for about 30% of the country’s power supplies in the late 1990s. With all but three reactors closed, the plants generated 6% of German electricity last year.
Poster Comment:
Politicians that stupid need to die. They lost cheap natural gas. And now no nuclear. A company that was in business since 1348 filed for bankruptcy last month because of this gibberish.