How Fukushima Triggered Germany's Nuclear Phaseout

Nuclear Power Losing out to Renewables
Dirk Uwe Sauer, who chairs the Electrochemical Energy Conversion and Storage System research group at RWTH Aachen University, said atomic energy wasn’t worth it in the long run.

“In countries with liberalized energy markets, nuclear power plants only come about with state guarantees for the financial risks,” he said, pointing to France and Finland.

Plus, Flasbarth said, nuclear energy can’t compete with solar or wind energy when it comes to cost — and that trend is expected to continue.

“Renewable energy is becoming cheaper and cheaper, while nuclear is becoming more and more expensive,” he said.

Flasbarth also sees little chance of nuclear energy making inroads elsewhere: “How is that supposed to work in developing countries when even highly industrialized countries with advanced technologies are having difficulty, first of all, mastering the technology, and, second of all, building plants within a reasonable amount of time at a reasonable cost?”

There could be other reasons why governments might, pursue atomic energy, said Wolfram König, the president of the Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management.

“In the past, the civilian use of this technology has always been coupled with the question of usability for the military,” König said. From this comes the danger that this technology could be “used in not exactly the most stable political systems.”

Historic Political Consensus
As Germany fast approaches its goals of phasing out nuclear energy by the end of 2022 and coal by 2038, renewable energy must be expanded fast. As Sauer sees it, the goals are attainable within that time period, but the implementation is still too slow. He wants to see “significantly more ambitious goals.”

Fukushima led to a major decision in Germany that hardly anyone questions now. Flasbarth calls it “one of the greatest contributions to consensus-building in Germany’s postwar history.”

Still, the topic arises from time to time. A position paper of the CDU’s federal committee for economic affairs, jobs and taxes, for example, cautiously calls for the examination of “atomic energy projects and smaller modular reactors without prejudice.” But it doesn’t go so far as to call for new nuclear plants.

In fact, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is the only major party calling for a return to nuclear power, citing concerns over the energy supply. The party also contends that electricity has been too heavily taxed during the energy transition. But nuclear energy doesn’t seem to be a winning topic for the AfD: There’s no mention of it in the upcoming state election campaign programs.

Christoph Hasselbach is a DW reporter.This article is published courtesy of Deutsche Welle (DW).