Demands for nuclear power plant lifetime extensions are getting louder. All-metal President Wolf even goes one step further. The Green Youth, on the other hand, categorically excludes longer terms - in contrast to the majority of Green voters.
The president of the employers' association Gesamtmetall, Stefan Wolf, has spoken out in favor of the continued operation of the three nuclear power plants still in operation in Germany and a debate about the construction of new reactors. "I think it's absolutely necessary for nuclear power plants to run longer," Wolf told the newspapers of the Funke media group. An extended service life for the three nuclear power plants that are still in operation could significantly reduce the generation of electricity from gas and help secure the power supply when gas is really no longer available.
"But we also have to have a debate about the construction of new nuclear power plants," Wolf continued. "There are currently 50 new nuclear power plants being built worldwide, and the technology has advanced. The EU has only just labeled nuclear energy as green energy."
Wolf refers to the so-called taxonomy. At the beginning of July, the EU launched a kind of catalog for climate-friendly investments. In this context, from January 2023 it will also be considered climate-friendly to invest money in certain gas and nuclear power plants. Environmentalists, among others, find this wrong. There are currently three nuclear power plants still connected to the grid in Germany: Emsland in Lower Saxony, Isar 2 in Bavaria and Neckarwestheim 2 in Baden-Württemberg. According to the law, however, they should be switched off at the end of 2022.
The chairwoman of the Green Youth, Sarah-Lee Heinrich, ruled out extended terms in an interview with the editorial network Germany: "An extension of the term cannot be made with us. And an extension of the term is what goes beyond the stretching operation." It is not necessary and expensive. "And nuclear energy is a high-risk technology. What we need is the expansion of renewable energies."
54 percent of the Greens voters for an extension of the term
According to a survey, a majority of Greens voters are in favor of extending the lifetime of the remaining nuclear power plants in Germany. In a representative survey by the opinion research institute Insa for the "Bild" newspaper, 54 percent were in favor of an extension in order to make the energy supply less dependent on Russian gas. 38 percent of Green voters were against continued operation. In the general population, 70 percent are in favor of the extension, 20 percent against and 10 percent undecided.
Because of the energy crisis caused by the Russian war of aggression, there is again discussion about allowing nuclear power plants in Germany to run for a few months longer in a so-called stretch mode. FDP politicians, for example, are calling for this, and some Green politicians are also not ruling it out. However, the latter refer to a new stress test for the power supply, which Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck ordered from the Greens. CSU regional group head Alexander Dobrindt held longer terms by several years possible on Saturday. However, there has long been a debate about restarting nuclear power plants that have already been shut down.
