Pragmatic solution or ideological madness? There is a bitter debate about a possible extension of the lifetime of nuclear power. The most important questions and answers about the opportunities – and the hurdles that would have to be overcome.
They are images that politicians love. In white protective suits, Markus Söder (CSU) and Friedrich Merz (CDU) are standing on a parapet above the cooling basin of the Isar 2 nuclear power plant in Lower Bavaria on Friday. The look is resolute, the message: We won’t let up.
With their photo shoot at the nuclear reactor, Merz and Söder want to produce the associated images for an offensive that the Union has been running against the traffic light government for weeks. At the end of 2022, the last three remaining nuclear power plants in Germany should actually be taken off the grid, which would mean that the nuclear phase-out would finally be complete. But in the current energy crisis, it would be madness to do without nuclear power, the Union argues – and is demanding a decision this August.
The extension must be decided as soon as possible in the Bundestag, if necessary during the summer break, said Merz on the sidelines of the visit. “It’s finally time to act,” Söder said. “Germany cannot waste any more time when it comes to the important energy supply.”
The federal government, on the other hand, which had long rejected an extension of the term, now wants to at least wait for the result of the so-called “stress test” from the Ministry of Economic Affairs. Should this show that Germany would have a problem without the continued operation of the nuclear power plants, then the Greens, who are traditionally critical of nuclear power, would also run out of arguments.
The results will only be available in a few weeks, according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs. Until then, you can still argue excellently. What is the point of nuclear power in the current energy crisis? Is this all safe at all? Where do the fuel rods come from and how much is it all going to cost? The most important questions and answers.
The hope is that the stress test will provide an empirically reliable answer to the question that has been the subject of debate for months: can nuclear power help to overcome the current energy crisis? The test initiated by the Ministry of Economics is intended to check whether the German supply network would survive the worst possible case.
The four transmission system operators had already carried out an initial stress test in the spring, which assumed, among other things, declining gas deliveries, an increase in gas prices and a partial failure of the French nuclear power plants. The result at the time: Yes, we can do it, even without nuclear power. Now the stress test is carried out again – with tightened parameters.
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That is hard to say. It also depends on what we are discussing. Should nuclear power replace the proportion of gas we currently use to generate electricity so that we can use the saved gas for heating and industry? Experts consider this unrealistic: many gas-fired power plants generate electricity and heat at the same time, which would make it counterproductive to switch them off. Other gas-fired power plants, on the other hand, are systemically important for their region or are only switched on when there is a shortage.
A study by the consulting firm Energy Brainpool from July assumes that extending the service life would save only one percent of annual gas consumption. Nuclear engineer Thomas Walter Tromm from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), on the other hand, assumes that the gas saved would be enough to heat three million single-family homes.
The electricity market, not the gas market, actually provides a stronger argument for continuing to use nuclear power. Because it cannot be ruled out that parts of Germany and Europe will run into a real supply problem this winter. Bavaria, for example, fears a power shortage for the winter without the domestic Isar 2 pile: The Free State is already dependent on electricity imports from other federal states and abroad. If Isar 2 is shut down at the turn of the year, Bavaria will suddenly be missing twelve percent of its own electricity generation.
It is unclear to what extent these twelve percent can be offset by additional imports. The electricity for this would be available, but the northern federal states produce more electricity with large wind farms in the North and Baltic Seas than they can use themselves. But: “The power lines to Bavaria may not be powerful enough,” said Bavaria’s Economics Minister Hubert Aiwanger (free voters) in July to FOCUS online.
Nobody knows whether there is enough capacity in the lines to transport enough electricity from north to south in a real emergency. For years, the CSU in Bavaria had sided with citizens’ movements and nature conservation associations protesting against the construction of large north-south power lines to Bavaria – and thus delaying the necessary expansion.
So the more Bavaria can produce itself, the better. Because the Free State can only rely on help from abroad to a limited extent. France, otherwise a reliable exporter of nuclear power to Germany, currently has its own electricity problem – and is now even being supplied from Germany instead of the other way around. Half of the 56 nuclear reactors in the country have been idle for weeks: due to the corona pandemic, urgently needed maintenance work on the mostly 40-year-old nuclear power plant fleet could not be carried out. Corrosion damage was recently found on twelve piles, which first has to be repaired.
And the reactors that are still connected to the grid have to reduce their output in some cases. As recently as Thursday, a reactor in Golfech in south-west France had to reduce its output from around 1,200 to 300 megawatts. The reason is the heat wave in France: Nuclear power plants need a lot of water, but for environmental reasons they are no longer allowed to take in the water when the river temperature is too high and heat it back into the river. Instead, the power plants reduce their output to the minimum.
In the end, it could be the ailing nuclear power plants in France that are the decisive factor in the continued operation of German nuclear power. Especially since there are fears that the local electricity consumption could increase sharply again in winter – because of fan heaters. According to the market research company GfK, a total of 600,000 fan heaters were sold in Germany from January to June. Customers probably want to save gas with electrical appliances in winter, but doing so would above all increase electricity consumption. “If such an additional load occurs at the same time, the overload protection can respond and thus lead to a power failure in the affected network areas,” warns Dr. Hendrik Lens, energy expert at the Electrical Engineering Association VDE.
A fundamental obstacle to extending the service life is that it would upset the power plant operators’ years of planning. “We have been geared towards this since 2011, with personnel planning and the like,” said RWE spokesman Jan-Peter Cirkel to FOCUS online in December last year. In many places, dismantling is already underway: the power company EnBW has long since commissioned special companies for its power plant in Neckarwestheim, Baden-Württemberg, to dismantle the reactor’s pressure vessel and take care of the decontamination.
The uranium fuel is also a problem. The Lingen nuclear power plant in Emsland, for example, says it has planned that the fuel rods for the reactors will be used up by the turn of the year. New fuel rods would then be needed for continued operation.
And ordering these fuel elements is time-consuming. The fuel rods have to be manufactured individually for each nuclear power plant, but the supply contracts with the manufacturers are either expiring or have already expired. The environment and economy ministries assume that it will take at least twelve months for the fuel rods to arrive and be ready for use. This is consistent with information from the industry.
Assuming that the result of the stress test is still a few weeks away, fresh fuel rods for the German nuclear reactors would not be available until September 2023 at the earliest. The time until then could be bridged in the so-called “extended operation”: The nuclear power plants will run at reduced output this summer and autumn so that the fuel rods last longer. You would not have gained more electricity overall, but the production would have been “stretched” over time. In the case of the Isar 2 power plant, an expert opinion from TÜV Süd even assumes a “reactivity reserve” that would enable continued operation for around 80 days.
Difficult questions also arise when it comes to personnel in the event of a term extension. Because the planned shutdown of the three remaining nuclear power plants at the end of the year is accompanied by a long-planned downsizing. Some of the staff will stay and take care of the demolition, but older employees in particular are retiring, while others take the opportunity to make a change. These often specialized colleagues would then first have to be brought back – or replaced.
There is “a great willingness on the part of the workforce to continue,” said the site manager of Isar 2, Carsten Müller, in June at a hearing in the Bavarian state parliament. Another industry representative is more skeptical about FOCUS online: “I also believe that some will come back because they want it or see it as their duty. But certainly not all of them.” Because there will also be employees like that: who may already be working for another employer on January 1st – or who are simply looking forward to their retirement. The fact that each new hire requires specific training for his or her power plant only complicates matters. Proponents argue that power plants could theoretically continue to be operated with fewer staff.
In principle, nuclear power, especially in Germany, is extremely safe. This is also due to the high technical hurdles that have to be met. The question of security cannot therefore be answered without asking about the legal situation.
In Germany, the safety of nuclear power plants must be proven every ten years in the so-called “periodic safety review” (PSÜ). The problem: the last test date in 2019 was canceled due to a change in the law – the last reactors were supposed to go off the grid in 2022 anyway.
“If operation continued after January 1, 2023, the last safety check would be 13 years old, and a new one would be imperative,” said a joint report by the environment and economic ministries in April. At the moment, regular inspections only ensure that the remaining German nuclear power plants do not have any technical defects – but that does not necessarily mean that they are safe. In July 2019, the European Court of Justice also ruled that extending the service life of nuclear power plants actually requires an environmental impact assessment. The federal government would either have to make up for this test or ask a German court for an exception.
In its test report for the Isar 2 nuclear power plant for the Bavarian Ministry of the Environment, however, TÜV Süd stated that it saw no safety concerns against continued operation. The TÜV argued that a check could also be carried out during operation.
no The Tüv report really got the Federal Environment Ministry in Berlin upset: The statement “does not meet the basic requirements for reports and serious expert statements and should therefore not be used for state decision-making,” says a sharp internal note from June, which Ministry released over the weekend. The paper does not meet the nuclear law requirements.
In June, Gerrit Niehaus, head of the reactor safety department at the Federal Ministry for the Environment, wrote a fire letter accusing his Bavarian colleagues of being careless when it came to safety. The ministry in Munich is making an “assessment of security that I cannot understand” that “contradicts the principles of German supervisory practice,” quoted the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” on Friday from the letter.
In fact, the matter of checks and approvals is complicated. It starts with the fact that there are two different permits that are often confused: On the one hand, the “operating permit”, which applies beyond the shutdown of a power plant and also covers dismantling, for example. And then there is the so-called “power operation authorization”, which authorizes the generation of electricity.
However, this “authorization” expires on December 31, as stipulated in the Atomic Energy Act. Because it was intended that the piles would then no longer produce electricity. The Bundestag would have to come together first and change the law.
Much more serious, however: According to the ministries, all safety-related aspects must be carefully examined before a new authorization is granted. This also includes the fact that an extension of the term would entail a change in the personnel structure, i.e. that valuable specialist knowledge would be lost, for example. These “human factor aspects” are “particularly relevant for the safety check”, according to the note from the Ministry of the Environment.
In addition, the so-called “safety requirements”, which serve as the basis for the test procedures, would have to be updated to reflect the current state of the art. And according to the interpretation of the authorities, the PSR should actually be completed before the extension of the term, i.e. before the end of the year. Because it is at least conceivable that continued operation, even if only for a few months, will require technical upgrades or repairs. But a PSR usually takes years, just like updating the safety requirements.
In fact, it all reads like bureaucratic paragraph riding, especially in the face of an imminent supply crisis. And not all experts agree with the strict interpretation of the law by the environment and economics ministries. “At least if it’s just a stretching operation, a solution can definitely be found there,” believes an industry representative. The fact is, however, that the Federal Constitutional Court has set strict limits on the authorities when it comes to reactor safety.
In its landmark decision on nuclear power from 1978, the court held that the use of nuclear power was fundamentally constitutional. However, the safety requirements must always guarantee the right to protection of life and physical integrity, according to the “principle of the best possible hazard prevention and risk prevention” in accordance with the “current state of the art in science and technology”.
In other words: When it comes to nuclear power, the Constitutional Court does not tolerate any shortcuts or half measures. However, a life extension without a completed current security check, in which deficits may go undetected, could represent such a shortcut. At the very least, it would be a gateway for constitutional lawsuits from nuclear opponents – which doesn’t help anyone either.
And even if the security requirements should still be met in the remaining four and a half months, residual risks remain. Although the risk of a devastating nuclear disaster in Germany, modeled on Chernobyl and Fukushima, is infinitesimally small, it is not zero. The additional nuclear waste must also be transported and stored.
Even the war in Ukraine could be a factor: in the course of the Russian invasion, several nuclear power plants were shelled, most recently the Zaporizhia reactor in the embattled south of the country. “We have to carry out a new risk assessment,” demanded the President of the Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management (Base), Wolfram König, in the specialist publication “Tagesspiegel Background”.
One thing is clear: the continued operation of the three nuclear reactors also entails costs. Fuel rods have to be bought, specialized personnel have to be recruited at short notice, upgrades may have to be made or parts need to be replaced. All of this costs money.
The operator groups are therefore not even that keen on extending the term. You can also make money elsewhere in the overheated energy market with much less effort. “RWE’s future is green and renewable,” said company spokesman Jan-Peter Cirkel to FOCUS online in December.
A package worth billions would then possibly have to be untied again. After years of legal disputes, the four operating companies Eon, EnBW, RWE and Vattenfall received a total of 2.4 billion euros in compensation from the federal government in March last year because they had to shut down their reactors due to the nuclear phase-out. What if the reactors remain connected to the grid for a longer period of time, possibly for years?
“Should this be deviated from – due to the changed situation – the legal regulation would have to be adapted,” wrote Daniela Winkler, professor of public law in Stuttgart, and her research assistant Roman Pfleiderer on Monday in a guest article for the specialist portal “Legal Tribune Online “. The fundamental problem is that the contract concluded between the federal government and the operators does not even contain the possibility of extending the term. “Obviously, such a development was not foreseen by the contractual partners,” write Winkler and Pfleiderer.
This is perhaps the most important question of all, but it is still unresolved. According to the German Atomic Energy Act, the power plant operators themselves are liable for damage of up to 2.5 billion euros, and the federal government takes care of everything above that. However, this liability also expires at the end of the year. So who is financially responsible for an extension if something should happen?
For the power plant operators, the answer is clear: the taxpayers must be held liable. After all, it is the state that really wanted a short-term extension of the term. In their test report from March, the environment and economics ministries disclosed that the industry had already made demands. According to this, the operators announced “that the federal government should then assume a ‘quasi-owner’ role, with full control and responsibility for investments, costs, income as well as the scope and depth of the process on the safety and licensing side.” Scenario, states the note, “the nuclear power plants would be operated by the companies on a quasi-government basis.” And the companies would be fine.
