Germany has completed the nuclear phase-out: The last three nuclear power plants went offline on Saturday evening. This was announced by the operators of the Meiler Isar 2 in Bavaria, Neckarwestheim 2 in Baden-Württemberg and Emsland in Lower Saxony. In order for the nuclear power plants to be considered switched off, a few technical steps were necessary after the generators had been disconnected from the public power grid.
Until the last possible hour, the operators had still produced electricity through nuclear fission – according to the operator, the Neckarwestheim 2 power plant was the last to go offline at 11:59 p.m. “We work according to the law and it is clear that power operation from April 16 would be a criminal offense,” said the federal chief nuclear supervisor, head of the department for nuclear safety and radiation protection in the Ministry of the Environment, Gerrit Niehaus, the German press -Agency.
new beginning and dismay
It is the beginning of a new energy era: opponents of nuclear power celebrated the historic step on Saturday with festivals in Berlin and elsewhere. Several hundred people came to a “switch-off party” in Neckarwestheim, and the Bund Naturschutz and Greenpeace also organized a “nuclear phase-out party” in Munich. Hundreds of opponents of nuclear power demonstrated at the Lingen nuclear power plant in Lower Saxony against the fuel element factory ANF, which is also located there and belongs to the French Framatome group, and also demanded its closure.
Dismay at the exit, however, prevailed at the Isar 2 nuclear power plant in Essenbach, Bavaria. According to the chairman of the operating group Preussen-Elektra, Guido Knott, the shutdown is an emotional moment for the employees of the kiln: “Today, after 50 years, electricity production from nuclear energy ends at Preussen-Elektra I was also personally very affected.”
The group had previously explained the process in detail, which is virtually the same for all three reactors: After disconnecting from the power grid, the reactor should be switched off within about fifteen minutes. After that it is “cold down”. This means that the temperature in the system is reduced to ambient temperature within around twelve hours. About nine hours after the shutdown, steam should no longer be visible over the cooling tower.
The government of Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) decided to phase out nuclear power after the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, in 2011. Actually, it should have been completed by the end of last year. Because of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and the resulting energy crisis, the current traffic light coalition of Merkel’s successor Olaf Scholz (SPD) decided last autumn to continue running the reactors over the winter until mid-April.
But even after the nuclear phase-out, the challenges of dealing with the high-risk technology remain. First of all, the piles have to be dismantled as quickly as possible. The Atomic Energy Act has the regulation that the nuclear power plants are to be dismantled immediately, said nuclear supervisor Niehaus. “That means, on the one hand, pushing ahead with the dismantling approval process, but also taking the first permissible steps towards dismantling.”
