Nuclear is history - over there, that is
Kenneth Richter
31 May 2011
Because of its role in WWII, expressing pride in Germany has historically been viewed with suspicion, inside and outside the country.
But as a German I feel proud today of a truly historic development taking place in my home country right now: it is set to become the first country to phase out nuclear energy entirely.
In Germany, the coalition government has announced that all of the country's nuclear power plants will be shut down by 2022.
Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen said: "It's definite. The end for the last three nuclear power plants will come in 2022. There is no revision clause."
The decision followed the recent nuclear crisis in Japan and massive anti-nuclear protests across Germany. In March 200,000 people in four cities went on the streets against nuclear.
Currently almost a fourth of Germany's electricity is being provided by nuclear power stations.
Surely such a shutdown means new coal-fired power stations will need to be build instead and Germany will import more power from nuclear neighbours like France and Poland?
Actually no. Not really.
The government's Ethics Commission for a Secure Energy Supply has presented their plan for the nuclear phase out. Energy consumption is to be reduced by 10% by 2020, primary through efficiency measures. Renewable energy will be scaled up rapidly to provide a third of all energy and smart grids will compensate for fluctuations in capacity. 12,000 megawatts will be provided by new highly efficient combined heat and power plants (CHP).
In its report the ethics commission comes to the conclusion that "a secure energy supply is possible without compromising our climate targets, without blackouts and without imports of nuclear energy, while resulting in an increase of jobs in our economy."
Now there is something for Germany to be proud of.
In the UK nuclear power provides just one sixth of our electricity - so there's plenty of scope for us to look forward to a green nuclear-free future, too.
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