Despite the forthcoming shutdown of the last German nuclear power plants, Bundestag Vice President Katrin Göring-Eckardt is confident that electricity prices will become cheaper. “Of course, the price of electricity will be cheaper the more renewables we have,” said the Greens politician on Tuesday at MDR Aktuell. Nuclear power is “expensive, both in manufacture, in production and afterwards”. In addition, the question of disposal remains unresolved.
The nuclear waste is currently in interim storage facilities across the country. That also costs a lot of money, said Göring-Eckardt. The costs for this are borne by the taxpayers “and above all by future generations”. In addition, nuclear power is no longer necessary for security of supply in Germany. She “no longer played any significant role, not even last winter”.
“What was needed was really marginal,” explained Göring-Eckardt. In addition, nuclear power plants are not suitable for short-term compensation at peak times. “You can’t switch them on at peak times. We need other energy sources for that.” For the transitional period, gas is currently the better option.
On Saturday, the three remaining nuclear power plants in Germany are finally to go off the grid. This was actually supposed to happen at the end of last year. However, because of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and the resulting energy crisis, the federal government decided last year to let the reactors continue to run over the winter.
