Nuclear power currently produces 6% of net electricity production in Germany.
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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced on Monday 17 October to extend the operation of the last three German nuclear power plants, a “snub” for the Greens in his coalition government, in the context of an unprecedented energy crisis. “The legal bases will be created to allow the operation of the Isar 2, Neckarwestheim 2 and Emsland nuclear power plants beyond December 31, 2022, until April 15, 2023“, specifies a letter from the chancellor to the government that AFP was able to consult.
His coalition government had so far only agreed on maintaining two of the three power plants beyond the end of 2022, the date initially planned for a nuclear phase-out. The Emsland power station in the north of the country was in the cœur of a showdown within the ruling coalition formed of the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Liberals, torn over the solutions to be found in the face of the energy crisis born of the war in Ukraine.
The chancellor therefore finally decided on Monday, in an emergency context, where the first European economy is trying to reduce its dependence on Russian energy imports, in particular its gas. Justice Minister Marco Buschmann, of the FDP (Liberal Democratic Party), welcomed Chancellor Scholz’s decision on Twitter.
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“Common sense prevails… This strengthens our country because it ensures greater grid stability and lower electricity prices”, he rejoices, while nuclear power currently produces 6% of net electricity production in Germany. But this decision is a new blow for the German Minister of the Economy, the ecologist Robert Habeck, whose frictions with his colleague of Finances, the liberal Christian Lindner, are more and more obvious.