After the delay caused by the interruption of the Russian gas flow and the consequent increase in bill prices, this time Germany is not returning: on April 15, the last three nuclear reactors remaining active in the country will be shut down definitively. Contrary to the path taken by the Germans that had split the Germans in half and taken elsewhere in Europe, particularly neighboring France and Poland, which planned to build new facilities instead. But Berlin is heading straight ahead and relies on the wind to respond to those that are haunting the specter of a new rise in energy prices.
Scholz’s challenge
Chancellor Olaf Scholz warned that we will need to install “four to five wind turbines a day” to meet our needs over the next few years. The German leader was the last implementer of the German atom, whose history began in 1961, but the decision to close the factories bears Angela Merkel’s signature: after years of pressure from the ecological front, the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, sparked a wave of protest that resulted in a massive anti-nuclear demonstration attended by 250,000 people. it happened. Merkel listened to the square and in May 2011 decided to close all factories in the country.
Jens Spahn, CDU energy policy spokesperson and former health minister of the last Merkel government, today changed the mind of the former chancellor’s party: “The decommissioning of nuclear power plants is a black day for climate protection in Germany,” he said. The reference here is that, despite their gradual reduction, the latest reactors inject 70 gigawatt hours per day into the grid, meeting about 3 to 7% of German electricity demand depending on the time of day. And now we’re going to have to rely more and more on fossil fuels like coal and gas to make up for it. At least in the near future.
Wind, gas and coal
In fact, despite making significant progress in the development of renewable energy sources, the country has been at a stalemate in investment in green facilities in recent years. In a report from think tank Ember, “Germany was a world leader in onshore wind, but installed only a third of the capacity it had in the previous four years in 2017-2021.” “The main reasons for this slowdown were lack of land for factories, investor uncertainty and slow licensing procedures,” the report said.
The new Scholz government has decided to cut red tape to accelerate concessions and the growth of wind power. But the challenge is tough. Even more when you consider the goal of shutting down all coal power plants in the country by 2038 and most of them by 2030. Today, these power plants supply about a third of Germany’s electricity production. Moreover, despite the fact that the construction of liquefied natural gas terminals has begun in record time, experts have doubts whether LNG can make up for the reduction in Russian gas (in terms of quantity, but above all in terms of cost).
For this reason, a cry of alarm has risen from the business world in recent months, and it seems to have been shared by the public as well. According to a recent poll, more than half of Germans will favor expanding nuclear power plants, fearing a further increase in utility bills. Liberals of the FDP, members of Scholz’s executive branch, but those loyal to the positions of German companies trying to delay the shutdown of reactors until the last minute, agree. But the chancellor remained true to the commitment made with other government allies, the Greens, who were grounded in the fight against nuclear power. Time will tell who is right.
Source: Today IT

Roy Brown is a renowned economist and author at The Nation View. He has a deep understanding of the global economy and its intricacies. He writes about a wide range of economic topics, including monetary policy, fiscal policy, international trade, and labor markets.