Germany turned off its final three nuclear reactors on Saturday. Leaving nuclear power while attempting to wean itself off fossil fuels and handle an energy crisis precipitated by the Ukraine conflict.
While many Western countries are increasing their investments in nuclear energy to cut emissions, Germany ended its nuclear age early.
It’s “the end of an era,” RWE stated in a statement just after midnight. Confirming the three reactors had been unplugged from the power system.
Since 2002, Europe’s largest economy has been looking to phase out nuclear power. But German chancellor Angela Merkel hastened the phase-out in 2011 following the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan.
The decision to leave was widely supported in a country with a strong anti-nuclear movement fueled by lingering worries of a Cold War clash. And nuclear disasters such as Chernobyl in Ukraine.
“The risks of nuclear power are ultimately unmanageable,” said Environment Minister Steffi Lemke. While visiting the ill-fated Japanese facility this week ahead of a G7 meeting in Japan.
To mark the shutdown, anti-nuclear protesters flocked to the streets in many German towns.
Greenpeace, which is in the forefront of the anti-nuclear fight, hosted a celebration at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate.
“We are putting an end to a dangerous, unsustainable, and costly technology,” Green Party MP Juergen Trittin stated.
Activists symbolically slayed a model dinosaur in front of the Brandenburg Gate.
Germany’s nuclear exit was originally scheduled for the end of 2022, but it was postponed due to dwindling Russian gas supplies.
Germany, the EU’s top emitter, also restarted some of its idle coal-fired reactors to fill the potential gap left by gas.
The tough energy situation had fueled domestic requests to postpone the nuclear phase-out.
In view of anticipated shortages and high prices. Germany needed to “expand the supply of energy rather than restrict it further,” according to Peter Adrian, head of the German Chamber of Commerce.
The opposition CDU party’s leader, Friedrich Merz, said the rejection of nuclear power was the product of a “almost fanatical bias.”
