Germany’s Nuclear Phaseout Ignores Energy Realities

By Paige Lambermont

Tuesday, January 18, 2022

 

When the EU Commission proposed that both nuclear and natural-gas power be given “green” designations in its “taxonomy for sustainable businesses,” Germany’s new unwieldy governing coalition made its displeasure quite clear. The German government is united in its opposition to the inclusion of nuclear but is divided over the inclusion of gas, with the Free Democratic Party and Social Democratic Party supporting it and the Green Party opposing it. Yet the country has also shown that its commitment to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions is predicated on unrealistic notions about what generation sources can be used to achieve its aims.

 

The country’s plan for its energy transition — the “Energiewende” — has goals that include reducing emissions 55 percent by 2030 from a 1990 baseline, of producing 40 percent of German electricity with renewables by 2025, and of limiting overall energy consumption by 50 percent compared with 2008 levels by 2050.

 

It has met the renewables goal, with a grid that is now 43 percent wind and 1.9 percent solar. But what it has lost is reliability. This renewable capacity requires reliable backup-generation sources in order to be effective. It’s because of this that Germany has failed to meet its emissions-reduction targets for two years running and is poised to miss them in the next two years as well.

 

Paradoxically, the Energiewende also involves the phaseout of the entire German nuclear fleet by the end of the year. Three of the six remaining nuclear reactors were closed on December 31. Before then, nuclear power had provided 6.2 percent of the country’s annual electricity. In 2002, a decade before the German government began its nuclear phaseout plan, that figure was 22.4 percent.

 

Why is a country with such challenging climate targets eliminating its use of already-existing low-carbon capacity? The answer comes down to a long-standing fear of nuclear power — panic in the wake of the Fukushima disaster and short-sightedness.

 

While the German government may feel good about these early reactor closures now, it will soon find that the reliable capacity that has served the country for decades won’t be there over the next few winters — something that may hurt as demand for electricity peaks during cold snaps. The Energiewende also involves the eventual phaseout of all German coal capacity, but it’s likely that with the country’s nuclear capacity out of commission, colder-than-normal winter freezes, and a sustained failure of the wind to blow in line with its usual patterns (as happened over the North Sea in the U.K. last year with damaging consequences there), among other things, there will be an increased demand for reliance on coal. Using coal instead of nuclear in the name of climate consciousness certainly strikes an ironic note.

 

Instead, Germany will be reliant on natural-gas imports from Russia — and especially so, once the final approvals have been received for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. A heavy reliance on Russia’s natural gas has already compromised the country’s geopolitical position. Weakening that position further by reducing and then eliminating what remains of the country’s nuclear fleet would not be a good idea at any point, but with tensions high over Ukraine, now is a particularly poor time to allow Russian president Vladimir Putin even more leverage.

 

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Germany’s neighbor, France, offers a useful comparison. While Germany has committed to closing its nuclear-power plants, France — after a brief interlude — has resumed a different tack.

 

France has had a nuclear-power program since the 1950s, which it increased after the first oil shock in 1973, as a way of guaranteeing energy security. The country currently generates 71 percent of its electricity from nuclear power and is the world’s largest net electricity exporter, selling its excess power to other countries in Europe including Germany.

 

In 2018, its net exports were 63 terawatt hours. Interestingly, France flirted with capping nuclear’s role in the 2010s, but ultimately — and wisely — decided to stay the course. Even though the government approved a proposal to limit nuclear to 50 percent of the nation’s electricity in 2016, the Macron government decided not to begin imposing this limit in its 2018 energy plan and has now ultimately pushed off share reductions until 2035, allowing the country to continue to benefit from these resources for the time being.

 

The country has insulated itself from geopolitical influences on its energy supply, whereas Germany has not. The decisions that governments make about how their nation’s energy needs are met reverberate well beyond the provision of power alone. Energy-supply issues can affect or be affected by international relations, price fluctuations have economic impacts that can make or break a government’s popularity, as can changes in the prices of energy alone, and so on. All of this, Macron has already discovered — the trigger for the rise of the gilets jaunes (yellow vests) was a fuel-tax hike. The combination of a cold winter and an energy crisis is something that no incumbent government will want to see.

 

As mentioned above, the EU Commission has proposed classifying (subject to certain conditions) nuclear power and some natural-gas capacity as green for the purposes of its sustainable taxonomy — a classification system that will be used for financing and other purposes. So far as nuclear is concerned, this acknowledges the reality that nuclear power doesn’t emit any carbon dioxide. What’s more, it recognizes that achieving the EU’s long-term energy-transition goals will require not only nuclear power but even additional natural-gas capacity in the near term.

 

Blocking the commission’s proposal would require the opposition of 20 of the 27 EU member nations. It could also be blocked by the vote of a majority of the members of the European Parliament. It seems more than likely that this proposal will go into effect. Nevertheless, Germany’s opposition — which according to some speculation may be expressed as an abstention — comes as another example of its persistent unwillingness to acknowledge energy realities. The consequences may serve as a painful lesson to other countries currently phasing out reliable nuclear capacity that already exists. It would be better still if it were to encourage others to reconsider their rejection of a potential power source too valuable to be overlooked.