Germany could show countries the way out of using nuclear energy
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COMMENTS 
Germany is the only industrialised country that is serious about ultimately shutting down all its nuclear reactors and scaling up investment in renewables. Experts say it could provide the map for others to follow
Germany, the world’s fourth largest economy, is planning to abandon nuclear power and invest instead in renewable sources of energy.
Currently, the country gets a quarter of its power from 17 nuclear power reactors. Germany had decided to phase out nuclear power within the next 25 years, but the disaster at the Japanese Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has hastened the process. Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that seven of the country’s 17 reactors would go offline for three months for new safety checks.
Billions are being poured into expanding the use of renewable energy to meet power demands, and experts say Germany could be showing the way for other countries to wean themselves off the nuclear diet.
“If we had the winds of Texas or the sun of California, the task here would be even easier,” Felix Matthes of Germany’s renowned Institute for Applied Ecology told Associated Press. “Given the great potential in the US, it would be feasible there in the long run too, even though it would necessitate huge infrastructure investments.”
Germany gets 23% of its power from nuclear plants, much the same as the United States. In contrast, India gets under 3% of power from its current nuclear plants, and with the addition of several new plants hopes to reach a target of 25% by 2050.
Public opinion has a lot to do with the German decision to scale back its use of nuclear power. The country felt the effects of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and nuclear power has not been very popular since then. Polls suggest that six in 10 Germans want nuclear reactors closed. On March 12, as reports of the Japanese disaster flooded in, protesters formed a 45 km human chain between the Neckarwestheim nuclear power plant and the city of Stuttgart in southern Germany.
A plan mooted a decade ago to abandon nuclear power by 2021 was amended last year by Merkel’s government to extend the deadline by another 12 years. But the Japanese disaster has forced her to announce a three-month moratorium on that law.
It is estimated that replacing nuclear power with renewable energy will require an investment of US$210 billion in renewable sources and may lead to higher electricity prices.
Germany now gets 17% of its electricity from renewable energies, 13% from natural gas and more than 40% from coal. The environment ministry says in 10 years renewable energy will contribute 40% of the country’s overall electricity production.
Source: Associated Press, March 23, 2011
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/, March 14, 2011