Germany to throw out all Nuclear Power by 2022
Germany is the latest European country to make the big nuclear decision. The nation will be nuclear free by the year 2022. The waves of anti-nuclear feeling is spreading across the European Continent with Germany being the latest country to ditch nuclear energy.
Germany has currently 17 nuclear reactors. After the earthquake in Japan that caused the nuclear tide to change, Germany shut down 7 of their oldest reactors in March due to safety concerns, one reactor had already been off-line. The remaining reactors will stay online until 2021 when 6 more will be decommissioned with the last 3 turned off the following year.
This is quite a large risk for Germany. It is a highly industrialized country and many of those industries demand lots of energy. Nuclear Power accounts for around 25% of that demand and will have to be replaced with reliable sources.
The country has always had a “green” aspect to it’s culture and the Government hopes to encourage this with efficiency to reduce the energy demand. Renewable energy will play an important role and we can expect lots of developments in this area.
Germany’s biggest source of electricity is from coal power plants. These produce around 45% of the country’s needs with renewables like solar, Wind and Hydro taking up the remainder.
The challenge here is much greater than what has happened to Switzerland’s Nuclear production. They have muck less energy to replace and twice as much time to achieve it. Germany might have to go back on its nuclear free commitment or extend the time-scale of it’s proposals.
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