Climate change and the energy crisis have prompted numerous countries to increasingly rely on nuclear power. Germany is a special case: Without having any significant amounts of constant energy sources at its disposal (apart from the climate-damaging forms of coal and gas), Germany still wants to shut down its last nuclear power plants at the end of the year and rely on fluctuating wind power and sun. A group of 20 professors at German universities is now pushing for the German energy transition to be corrected.
In their "Stuttgart Declaration", which the researchers intend to publish shortly, they call for the nuclear phase-out to be reversed and for the continued operation of German nuclear power plants to be guaranteed "as the third climate protection pillar" alongside sun and wind.
"We demand the immediate lifting of the nuclear phase-out paragraphs and an examination of the safety-related operating license in order to enable German nuclear power plants to continue operating," write the scientists in the statement, which is available to WELT. "With a one-sided focus on the sun, wind and natural gas, Germany was maneuvered into an energy shortage," warn the researchers, who work in technical and economic departments.
They want to send their declaration to the Bundestag's Petitions Committee, which should release it for the general public to sign. If at least 50,000 supporters come together, the scientists could, according to the legal procedure, explain their demands to the Bundestag committee.
The signatories to the "Stuttgart Declaration" fear economic problems as a result of the nuclear phase-out: "Rising energy prices and declining security of supply endanger competitiveness and prosperity," they write. Adhering to the German nuclear phase-out would slow down climate protection because coal energy would be required to ensure the electricity supply - as is already happening in Germany.
The initiator of the declaration, André Thess, professor of energy storage at the University of Stuttgart, believes that other researchers will be added: "There is a broadening scientific consensus that Germany can no longer ignore the statements by the Intergovernmental Panel on Nuclear Energy as a climate protection technology," he told WORLD.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has identified nuclear energy as a possible climate protection instrument because it generates energy without climate-warming CO2 emissions. The European Union also classifies nuclear power as a sustainable energy source. Nuclear power plants require little space, so in contrast to wind and sun, they hardly come into conflict with nature conservation, species protection and landscape protection. Nevertheless, unlike in other countries, nuclear power has had a difficult time in the German media since the 1970s, as media research has determined.
The anti-nuclear movement forms the founding core of the Greens party, whose representatives still fear the risk of radioactive radiation being released and the lack of final storage for old fuel rods. However, even Japan and the Ukraine continue to rely on nuclear power, although the only two serious nuclear accidents to date have happened in these countries with power plants of old design.
The first repositories for nuclear waste are to go into operation in Finland and Sweden. Energy experts at the "20 Years of Energy Transition" conference in Stuttgart had just criticized Germany's special path: the German transformation of energy supply is still in its infancy, is complex, expensive, technologically immature and shaped by ideology. Keywords would hide serious problems.
Energy researcher Thess reports that the idea for the initiative against the nuclear phase-out came up at the Stuttgart conference.
In addition to André Thess, the other signatories to the "Stuttgart Declaration" are: Burak Atakan from the University of Duisburg-Essen, Michael Beckmann from the Technical University of Dresden, Alexander Dilger from the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster, Francesca di Mare from the Ruhr University in Bochum, Kerstin Eckert from the TU Dresden, Sabine Enders from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Martina Hentschel from the Technical University of Chemnitz, Rafaela Hillerbrand from the KIT, Antonio Hurtado from the Technical University of Dresden, Matthias Kind from the KIT, Marco Koch from the Ruhr- University of Bochum, Andrea Luke from the University of Kassel, Axel Meyer from the University of Konstanz, Frank Schilling from the KIT, Harald Schwarz from the BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg, Klaus Steigleder from the Ruhr University Bochum, Robert Stieglitz from the KIT, Gerhard Wegner from the university Erfurt, Thomas Wetzel from KIT.
