Germany: nuclear power plants to close by 2022
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Germany's coalition government has announced a reversal of policy that will see all the country's nuclear power plants phased out by 2022, Xinhua reports.
Environment Minister Norbert Rottgen made the announcement: the seven oldest reactors - which were taken offline for a safety review immediately after the Japanese crisis - will never be used again.
An eighth plant - the Kruemmel facility in northern Germany, which was already offline and has been plagued by technical problems, would also be shut down for good. Six others would go offline by 2021 at the latest and the three newest will cease operation by 2022.
Germany could show to the world how a developed economy can achieve "such a transformation toward efficient and renewable energies, with all the opportunities that it has, for exports, development, new technologies and jobs," Merkel said.
"We will need a new architecture for our energy production," she added, acknowledging that Germany has to explore new sources for the vacancy left by the outgoing nuclear power, which currently accounts for 22 percent of the country's electricity production.
On Monday, the Federation of German Industry (BDI) expressed its worries, saying that the shutdown would force Germany to build more coal and gas power plants to stabilize the energy supply and price. As a result, it would lead to more greenhouse gas emissions.
"We don't only hope to give up nuclear energy by 2022, but also to reduce our CO2 emissions by 40 percent and double our share of renewable energies, from about 17 percent today to then 35 percent, " Merkel said.
Monday's decision was also seen as a return to the policy made by a previous Social Democrat-Green coalition government a decade ago. Last year, Merkel's coalition managed to extend the lifespan of nuclear power plants to around 2035, which was opposed by the majority of Germans and sparked rounds of protests afterwards.
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