To secure energy security while exiting nuclear power Germany needs to build double the amount of new fossil-fired power plants than the government previously had earmarked, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday, while sticking to ambitious emission reduction goals.
To secure energy security while exiting nuclear power
Germany
needs
to build double the amount of new fossil-fired power plants than the government
previously had earmarked, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday, while
sticking to ambitious emission reduction goals.
"If we want to exit nuclear energy and enter renewable energy, for the
transition time we need fossil power plants," Merkel said in a
parliamentary declaration on her government's decision to phase out nuclear
power. "At least 10, more likely 20 gigawatts [of fossil capacity] need to
be built in the coming 10 years."
That is more than the generation capacity of
Belgium
,
which in 2009 had capacity to generate more than 17.3 gigawatts, according to
the
Union
of the Electricity Industry, a Europe-wide sector
group.
Previously the German government had spoken of a need for an additional 10
gigawatts in fossil-fuel generation capacity. The extra amount would be in
addition to 10 gigawatts already in construction or in planning that should be
completed by 2013, Merkel said.
The new power stations will be both gas- and coal-fired, Merkel said, adding
that at the same time
Germany
wants
to stick to its target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% until 2020
from 1990 levels.
"The climate targets can't be kept" if the additional fossil-fuel
capacity were to be built, said Michael Mueller from the German Federation for
Nature, pointing to emission calculations from the energy industry.
The switch-off of the first seven of
Germany
's 17
nuclear power stations will add some 25 million metric tons a year to the
country's carbon dioxide emissions, the International Energy Agency said in
May.
Following the nuclear accident at
Fukushima
,
Japan
,
Merkel in March ordered those seven plants temporarily shut. An eighth was
closed for maintenance. All eight will now remain permanently closed as part of
the nuclear exit.
Much of the nuclear generation capacity will be replaced with low-emission
renewable power production, but likely not fast enough.
The government had earlier said that it plans to double
Germany
's
electricity consumption from renewable power to 35% in 2020 from 17% now,
mostly through a massive expansion of onshore and offshore wind power.
The opposition Social Democrats, known as SPD, and Greens Thursday cautiously
supported the plan to exit nuclear energy, but criticized a lack of ambition in
efforts to boost renewable energy.
"If you go toward an irreversible nuclear exit, I won't search for
tactical reasons to recommend my party a rejection," SPD parliamentary
leader Frank-Walter Steinmeier said, adding that Merkel has arrived where the
SPD and Greens had been 10 years ago.
A SPD-Green government in 2001, against the votes of Merkel's Christian
Democrats and her current Free Democrat coalition partner, had voted for a
phase-out of nuclear power within 20 years. Merkel's government in 2010
reversed that decision and granted utilities an extension of the operating life
of
Germany
's
nuclear power stations.
Facing mass demonstrations and an increasingly nuclear-skeptic electorate
following the disaster in
Japan
,
Merkel has taken back that extension and more or less reinstated the earlier
nuclear exit decision.
Διαβάστε ακόμα
Τρι, 24 Σεπτεμβρίου 2024 - 19:58
Τρι, 24 Σεπτεμβρίου 2024 - 19:54
Τετ, 18 Σεπτεμβρίου 2024 - 18:32
Τετ, 18 Σεπτεμβρίου 2024 - 18:27
Τρι, 17 Σεπτεμβρίου 2024 - 20:01