Why is Germany Phasing-Out Nuclear Power and Why Now? - 2021

Nuclear Power Industry

Appunn, a notorious anti-nuclear pundit, reported in late December, 2021 that Germany’s energy transition is its initial means for decarbonizing the economy and creating an industrialized nation supported by renewable electricity to reach a 2045 climate neutrality target. The country’s famous Energiewende has also always been marked as an example to other countries of how such a transition is possible. But there is one aspect of it that is widely causing wonder and sometimes disbelieve: the nuclear phase-out [more].

Why, at a time when emissions from fossil energy sources have to be reduced as fast as possible - and renewable energy sources such as wind and solar PV cannot (yet) support the country’s electricity needs – is Germany discontinuing the use of nuclear power, which is low in CO₂ [and turning to renewables (wind and solar) that cannot produce sufficient energy to meet the need at a reasonable cost, while at the same time burning their especially dirty coal (lignite)?, and burning natural gas from Russia?, and turning to Norway to supply electricity via cable?].

What are these reasons, repercussions, and benefits of this and how will it affect the country’s CO₂ footprint, energy mix and supply security?

Content of Article:

1. Facts of the German nuclear phase-out (here)

Plot of Location and Status of Germany's Nuclear Power Stations and Year of Planned Shut Down (here)

2. How did the nuclear phase-out come about in Germany? (here)

3. Why the nuclear phase-out was the enabler of the energy transition (here)

4. What do different stakeholders in Germany think about the nuclear exit? (here)

5. Is there still a debate to continue the use of nuclear power and could its proponents succeed? [here]

In the past months, some energy and industry managers, researchers and climate activists and pro-nuclear groups have again made a case for the use of nuclear power as a stable and low-in-CO₂ form of energy that could help Germany achieve its climate targets. Similarly, there have been calls to extend the lifetime of the existing reactors to the end of the decade to deliver low carbon energy during a time when renewable capacities are not yet plentiful enough to support the whole economy and to make it easier to end the use of coal.

Prominent automobile industry researcher Ferdinand Dudenhöffer has argued that with the rising demand of power from a growing electric car fleet and other sectors such as heating and industry, Germany needs the extra power production from nuclear plants [more]. Nuclear proponents also argue that Germany should embrace small modular nuclear reactors [SMRs] as advertised by Microsoft founder Bill Gates [and Terrapower, NuScale, Rolls Royce, etc.] (see Item# 14 below).

Despite frequent articles and opinion pieces in its favor, the majority of the population (in most polls), parliament, the government and the energy industry are highly unlikely to take these arguments to heart, let alone act on them (see above “What stakeholders think”). It is "completely out of the question" that German nuclear power plants will get another lifetime extension, said Rainer Baake. "Because the operators don't want it. Because there is no serious force in politics that is pursuing a lifetime extension, and the topic played no role in the coalition negotiations. Voters have not forgotten Chernobyl and Fukushima and know that there are better alternatives."[They should be better informed: 1) Chernobyl wasn't as bad as first indicated but mistakes were made (more), and 2) Fukushima: Wasn't prepared for tsunami, but meltdown was well handled. No one died, no one was irradiated (more)].

6. Why isn’t Germany phasing out coal before nuclear? [here]

As explained above [see: Item# 3 above] the decision to phase-out nuclear power was also the starting point for decarbonizing the country’s power supply by mainstreaming renewable energies and lowering their prices until they became cheaper than new conventional plants.

As for the government in 2000 or 2010 deciding to phase-out coal, instead of nuclear power: Compared to most countries – which largely took their coal exit decisions after the Paris Agreement of 2015 and several more pledged to end coal at the UN climate summit COP26 in 2021 – this would have been an extraordinarily early push to end the use of a historically familiar, domestic, and reliable power source, at a time when renewables didn’t present such an affordable and secure alternative as they do now.

Since the nuclear phase-out decision of 2000, the share of coal power in Germany’s electricity generation has fallen from 43 percent in 2011 (when 7 nuclear plants went offline) to 23.4 percent in 2020. No new coal power stations have been planned/constructed since 2007. Nevertheless, it does paint a rather questionable picture if a nation that sees itself as a climate action pioneer still boasts some of the largest power station emitters in Europe and, without the effect of the COVID-19 lockdowns, would likely have missed its emission reduction goals in 2020. However, Stefan Rahmstorf, Head of Earth System Analysis at Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, points out that “emissions from the energy sector have been cut in half since 1990 […] It's the other sectors which have failed so far to deliver their cuts”.

Campaigning against its fossil plant fleet led to the coal phase-out decision of 2020 – albeit with a rather late end-date for coal in 2038. At the time, this date was still in line with a climate neutrality target of 2050, and the new government’s suggestion to end coal by 2030 will make the new net zero target of 2045 achievable.

“Germany’s too-slow emission reductions cannot simply be linked to the timing of the nuclear and coal phase-outs, Simon Müller, Director Germany at think tank Agora Energiewende, told Clean Energy Wire. “After the boom years, the government let the renewable markets crash. With a more ambitious renewables expansion, the share of CO2-free power generation could be much higher now,” he said.

Another difference between coal and nuclear: Although keenly embraced by the leading parties in the 1960s, nuclear power was a relatively new phenomenon which didn’t have a strong footing in society and soon got discredited by accidents and protests [although there arguments against nuclear were factually unfounded and exaggerated without basis (more)]. Coal mining, on the other hand, has been deeply rooted in several German states for 200 years. It used to have a large – and often proud – workforce with considerable political influence and was often the main employer and economic stronghold of a region. It is (or, in the case of hard coal, was) also a domestically available energy source [although the soft coal (aka lignite) is still widely mined and burned producing very high emissions (more)]

These are among the reasons why it was easier for Germany to initiate the exit of nuclear power before the phasing out of coal.

7. Will Germany emit more CO2 because of the nuclear phase-out? (here)

8. No nuclear, no coal: Will the lights stay on?

Germany’s conventional power generation capacity is indeed beginning to dwindle. In December 2022, the country will have over 23 gigawatts (GW) less nuclear power capacity than ten years ago. By the end of 2022, some 13.9 GW of lignite- and hard coal-fired power stations will be closed according to the coal exit law – and the new government wants to make a coal exit by 2030 possible.

In the past 20 years, renewable capacity grew from 12 gigawatt in 2000 to 132 gigawatt in 2020, with wind and solar PV installations providing the largest share. In the same year, renewable power made up over 45 percent of Germany’s power consumption and, for the first time, became the single biggest contributor, ahead of coal.

Plot of German Power Export Balance - 1990 - 2021 (here)

While dealing with a growing share of weather-dependent renewables poses challenges and requires Germany’s power grids to be adapted to high (wind) power production in the north to be transferred to the industrial centers of the south, grid operators as well as the government generally agree that the lights will stay on. New appliances will be needed to keep the grid stable and the need for so called re-dispatch measures to balance supply and demand in all regions when nuclear power plants in the south are switched off will likely become more frequent. 

Modelling by researchers also shows that with the continued growth of renewables and the mentioned grid congestion management, Germany’s supply will remain secured. Germany still has overcapacities, making it a net-exporter of power. It has one of the most stable electricity systems in the world with very little outage times. Coal-fired power stations can be kept in a reserve, if their supply is crucial at times of emergency. The new government plans to establish a stress test for supply security; and the winter months of 2022 are likely going to provide a “real life” stress test for Europe’s and Germany’s energy supply, as gas and power prices are soaring amid an energy crunch brought on by tight gas supplies.

9. How does Germany want to make net-zero happen without nuclear?

Germany’s energy transition in the electricity sector has turned into a comprehensive plan to decarbonize the entire economy and reach net-zero greenhouse gases in 2045. With nuclear power and coal out of the picture by the end of the decade, the new government – which is adhering to the previous government’s climate targets – is putting the focus on renewables growth. Its aim is to reach a share of 80 percent renewables in electricity demand (which is envisaged to grow). Several “Germany net-zero” studies have shown that a system based on renewables is possible.

Plot of Installed Net Power Generation Capacity in Germany 2002 - 2021 (here)

The government acknowledges that a fleet of flexible (and hydrogen-ready) natural gas plants will be necessary to run a stable power system. Between 2019 and 2030, 21 GW of lignite and 25 GW of hard coal capacity will be shuttered, research institute EWI has calculated. Existing over-capacities, new flexibility options, and efficiency - as well as the addition of renewables capacity - will mean that not all of this controllable power plant capacity will need to be substituted, German energy industry association BDEW says. “But an earlier coal phase-out means we will need an additional 17 GW in gas-fired capacity,” BDEW head Kerstin Andreae said.

Germany will have to be even more interconnected with neighboring countries to exchange (renewable) power in times of low wind and little sun. It will need to upgrade its grid system. To supply power stations and industry, large amounts of hydrogen will be needed and imported.

10. Why doesn’t Germany get an energy system with both renewables AND nuclear? 

Its advocates portray nuclear power as a stable energy source that can help to secure supply during times of little wind and sun. "We need renewables to be complemented by a reliable, 24/7 energy source," said James Hansen, a climate scientist at Columbia University when taking part in a pro-nuclear climate demonstration in Berlin. But German energy experts have their doubts about whether fluctuating renewables are best complemented by nuclear. "A climate-friendly electricity system dominated by weather-dependent production from wind and solar plants requires a great deal of flexibility to balance fluctuating supply with fluctuating demand [more].

Nuclear power plants are technically and operationally designed for production that is as constant as possible. They are the exact opposite of what wind and solar need as partners," Rainer Baake said. Simon Müller, of Agora Energiewende, explains: “Nuclear and renewables are cheap to operate once they are built. This means ramping nuclear up and down is not an economic way to provide flexibility for the power system. Indeed, today’s pumped storage and demand-side response was built decades ago to provide flexibility to integrate nuclear power. Having both nuclear and renewables in the same system therefore increases the importance of other flexibility options.”

11. Will Germany become dependent on (nuclear) power imports from abroad?

Critics have called Germany’s decision to turn its back on nuclear energy hypocritical because it would continue to receive nuclear power generated in France or Belgium. Germany has power cable interconnectors with its European neighbors and has been a net exporter of electricity for many years. In addition to its nuclear and coal power generation, it had a growing share of renewable generation which buyers in the internal European power market liked to source because it is cheap. With the nuclear and coal exit, it will lose some of its overcapacities and more often import power from its neighbors – who also generally have a growing renewables share – but it won’t be alone in doing so.

In the future European electricity system, it is going to be “completely normal to exchange electricity continuously and dynamically with neighboring countries”, Simon Müller told Clean Energy Wire. For example, will the wind parks of Europe source power from the same low-pressure system as it moves across the continent, with the windiest country supplying the others before the next one takes over that role and so on.

12. What’s more expensive – renewables or nuclear?

One of the reasons why it is an obvious choice for Germany to make wind and solar its main power source rather than nuclear, is that new renewable installations have become cheaper than all other electricity sources – especially where a CO₂ price is applied. According to the World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2021 and Institute for Applied Ecology (Öko-Institut), the energy costs for nuclear power generation are currently 15.5 cents per kilowatt hour, compared to 4.9 cents for solar energy and 4.1 cents for wind power.

The British government has given a price guarantee of 11 cents per kilowatt-hour for 35 years to the nuclear power plant project Hinkley Point C. In Germany, feed-in tariffs for onshore wind and solar PV are between 6-7 ct/kwh or, in some tenders, even lower. Offshore wind parks are now being built without any government support. [But take another look (here)]

New reactor projects often turn out to be much more expensive than envisaged. The costs for a new “Evolutionary Power Reactor (EPR)“ in Flamanville, France, have risen from 3.4 billion to more than 19 billion euros, while the project will likely take at least 11 years longer than planned. Similar price hikes and delays have occurred in the UK, Finland and the U.S..

Plot of Price of Electricity from New Power Plants (here)

Nuclear technology has had negative learning rates, which means that new projects became more expensive instead of cheaper. If we take current investment costs as a basis, then it is clear that the cheapest power system is one that is fully based on renewables,” Simon Müller said. The global market situation shows that renewables dominate investments. The 2050 long-term projections by the International Energy Agency (IEA) assume nuclear energy supplying about 10 percent of electricity. “For the transformation, we need to thus look to renewables,” Müller said.

As many new nuclear projects also take considerably longer to construct than planned, the Öko-Institut concludes that it would also be faster to build a system based on renewables. [Note: one of the many myths and misinformation about the new SMRs, as well as the old large plants, is that both are more like building hydroelectric power plants in that they are built to last more than 50 years and to withstand aerial terrorist attacks and well as bad weather.

This is in stark contrast to the flimsy nature of the solar panels and windmills; they can not operate without sunlight or operate for long against bad weather, with no wind, or too much wind. Power line losses contribute to the poor efficacy of these renewables, even with back-up batteries. The operation and maintenances costs have been overlooked during the design stages and underestimated in the economic assessments of these projects. This is compounded by the decreasing costs of solar panels and even of the wind turbines resulting in less rugged equipment prone to shorter lifetimes and increasing O&M costs and increasing cost of electricity to the consumer (more) and (more)]

13. Nuclear power in the EU taxonomy and Germany’s position

Observers have called France’s push to include nuclear power projects in the EU taxonomy as a sustainable investment a “political nightmare” for Germany. Backed by a group of other European countries such as Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Finland, Hungary, Poland and Romania, French President Emmanuel Macron tries to make nuclear power a pillar of the EU’s decarbonization strategy, while Germany is betting heavily on wind and solar power – and is supported in this by Portugal, Austria, Luxembourg and Denmark. Germany’s new Chancellor Olaf Scholz, of the Social Democrats (SPD), has told Macron that he has always been opposed to nuclear power, much like his coalition partner, the Green Party.

If included in the taxonomy, nuclear power investments could be part of green funds, banks could declare loans to nuclear projects as sustainable investments – all in aid of getting more private investment to flow into climate friendly economic activities and businesses.

Agora Energiewende’s Müller says the German approach is still more future-proof. "The idea that nuclear power stations can be built at predictable costs and by a predictable schedule has not proven to be realistic. We also still have the unresolved problem of nuclear waste storage [more], as well as the possibility of a major accident. Germany’s decision to focus on the expansion of renewables instead of nuclear is reflected also by the markets as renewables dominate electricity investments internationally."

The European Commission is set to come out with a proposal for the taxonomy in January 2022, which EU member states will then decide on with a majority vote. Instead of an in-or-out decision on nuclear (and natural gas), the commission is likely to present a compromise that would classify nuclear as a temporary, transitional technology which has to be labelled and declared in funds so that consumers and investors have the choice between “entirely green” products, e.g. renewable energies, or second or third tier products that include nuclear or gas technology.

Whatever the decision, Müller says Germany and France should focus more on the common ground concerning the energy transition. “Recent French studies show – independently of the future of nuclear energy – that a massive expansion of renewables is needed to reach the climate targets. And there are also opportunities for cooperation between Germany and France on green hydrogen."

14. Shouldn’t Germany – like other countries – embrace and support the use of new small modular reactors?

Using a large fleet of small modular reactors (SMR) to secure climate neutral electricity supply in the future - as proposed by billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates via his Terrapower and other designs – has been hailed as a climate change solution. In Belgium, which is set to shutter its two remaining nuclear power stations by 2025, the government agreed to invest 100 million euros in the research on SMRs.

SMR proponents claim that, once produced in bulk, these small plants are cheaper and safer thanks to advanced reactor designs and can be operated with converted short-lived radioactive materials, solving the waste problem. [Note: There is no serious waste problem (more)]. But two assessments commissioned by the Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management (BASE) have found that these tens of thousands of small reactors would carry enormous risks with regard to the proliferation of weapons-grade materials and will probably never be as cheap as their advocates say. [Bias Alert: These are exaggerated claims. The fissionable content of even the new nuclear fuel will never reach bomb-grade, and remain below 20% U²³⁵, and the reactor designs of the SMRs make it very difficult to pirate the fuel. Costs will be competitive.]

15. What is different in Germany compared to other countries in Europe which embrace nuclear as a CO₂-free solution?

Germany not only has strong public support for, and a long history of anti-nuclear sentiment, it also has only 11 percent of nuclear left in its power mix. Leaving it behind entirely is therefore a more obvious and easy decision than for other countries, such as France, where the share of nuclear power in domestic generation stands at 70.6 percent, but also in Bulgaria with 40.8 percent, in Sweden with 29.8 percent (in Spain: 22.2%, Russia at 20.%, United States at 19.7%, UK 16%, all in 2020).

Historians also explain the different attitude towards nuclear with the different reactions to the Chernobyl accident, which was felt much closer and more threatening to Germans compared to French or UK citizens. Another explanation for Germany’s sensitivity to nuclear power is that early on, the post-war critique of nuclear weapons was linked to the civilian use of nuclear fission. (A second wave of the German peace movement in the 1980s would also bolster a younger generation’s resistance to nuclear power.) [See the rest of the story on Chernobyl (here) and in California (here)]

And even if there are people who make a case for nuclear for climate protection reasons, the exit has now proceeded too far to be reversed, and there is simply no influential political power that would consider re-opening the painful, decade-long debate on nuclear power that has finally been put to rest, [but the rest of the civilized world believes Germany is nuts (more) and (more) and the (rest)].

[We (the editors of the I2M Web Portal) conclude that Germany will have to eventually return to nuclear power as the SMRs spread throughout the world. In the meantime, nuclear power continues to expand in the U.S. and around the world (more), and burning coal will fade away as SMRs replace coal plants, and as the current wind and and solar projects fail to meet the needs even at increasing cost to consumer (more). Natural gas will eventually be replaced as the cost of SMRs begin to decrease becasue of the economy of production scale that will be underway by the end of the decade (see the economics of nuclear power (more). Other uses will be found for coal, lignite and petroleum and natural gas (for example (more) and hydrogen (more) and REE (more)].