CSU boss Söder once again brings nuclear power into play as a possible savior in need. Federal Minister of Economics Habeck, on the other hand, waves his hand and relies on hard coal, which is harmful to the climate, if Germany runs out of natural gas. Who has the better arguments on their side?
Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder wants the three remaining German nuclear power plants to continue operating at the turn of the year, contrary to the decision to phase out. It doesn’t make sense, “in view of an imminent gas shortage, to produce an additional electricity shortage by switching off nuclear power,” said the CSU party leader in an interview with “RTL”.
Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens), on the other hand, had announced that he would use less gas to produce electricity and instead increasingly use hard coal to generate electricity. Habeck resists the reactivation of nuclear power plants and justified this on ZDF with the lack of fuel elements.
“Reactivating coal certainly makes sense, but it is harmful to the climate,” says Söder. At the same time, he admitted that nuclear power is “not easy in the long run”. Söder continues: “But from the current perspective, it is better for the climate, cheaper and can be activated quickly in this case.”
Söder may be right with his climate argument, because no CO2 is released in a nuclear reactor. But anyone who uses that as the only argument in favor of nuclear power is making it too easy.
On the one hand, even the operators of the three remaining nuclear power plants disagree about a possible continued operation beyond the legally defined end of the service life (New Year 2023). At the end of March, EnBW answered a query from FOCUS Online in the negative: “In view of the possible effects of the war in Ukraine, the federal government examined extending the operating times of the German nuclear power plants still in operation and decided at the beginning of March that no changes should be made to the current framework for the nuclear power plant to operate the nuclear power plants. This legal framework clearly rules out electricity production in German nuclear power plants beyond December 31, 2022,” says the supplier from Baden-Württemberg: “The issue has thus been settled. EnBW asks for your understanding that it is therefore not currently taking part in another, purely hypothetical debate.”
The Neckarwestheim II block is the last nuclear power plant that EnBW still uses to produce electricity.
RWE AG, which operates the Emsland nuclear power plant, made a similar statement at the time. In addition, we now rely on renewable energies. Only PreussenElektra (Eon) was open to FOCUS Online regarding the continued operation of its nuclear power plant in Lower Bavaria: “In our view, the Isar 2 nuclear power plant (KKI 2) could be operated beyond December 31, 2022 and thus cushion a critical supply situation in the coming winter. Especially for operation in the coming winter, this initially requires no fresh fuel elements, no new license and no retrofitting, since the plant now meets all safety standards and would do so next year. We would make every effort to provide the personnel required in KKI 2 for continued operation from the entire PreussenElektra power plant fleet.”
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So there doesn’t seem to be a shortage of fuel elements, as Habeck suggested, and Söder is also certain of that: It is “technical nonsense” to say that there are no fuel rods available for the nuclear power plants. And: “They can be obtained anywhere in the world, all European neighbors do that.”
But even if not only Isar 2 but all three nuclear power plants could continue to run with fresh fuel elements: Would an extension of the nuclear power plant operating times because of a possible gas shortage make any sense at all from an energy economic point of view?
When it comes to power supply, nuclear power plants cannot replace gas-fired power plants. Because gas-fired power plants cover the peak load in the electricity sector and are used when power consumption suddenly rises sharply around midday and solar power plants cannot cover the additional demand. In 2021, gas-fired power plants supplied 10.5 percent of Germany’s electricity requirements.
Nuclear power, on the other hand, covers the base load for the power supply, i.e. the electricity demand that is needed day and night. Like lignite-fired power plants, nuclear power plants are very cumbersome to regulate, start up and shut down and are therefore not suitable for replacing gas-fired power plants, which have to be started up at lightning speed when needed. Pumped-storage power plants in the mountains would be an appropriate replacement or the quickly controllable compensation by large electricity consumers from industry who – such as cold stores or aluminum smelters – disconnect their systems from the power grid at short notice.
Andreas Fischer, energy expert from the Institute of German Economics (IW) in Cologne, told FOCUS Online Habeck’s opinion: “For short-term adjustments in power generation, modern coal-fired power plants are much better suited because they can be controlled much faster and more flexibly than nuclear power plants. “
Nuclear power does not help with heating either. Because nuclear power plants only serve to supply electricity. And electric heaters are rarely used in Germany. For heating, the Germans mainly use gas boilers in their basements, more rarely electricity-driven heat pumps, wood pellet heaters or old oil boilers.
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The waste heat from the nuclear power plants fizzles out unused in the cooling towers, whose heated water is then fed into the neighboring rivers. In order to use the heat from a nuclear power plant, it would have to be built close to the cities and their district heating networks. However, for safety reasons, there is no nuclear power plant in an urban area. Therefore, nuclear power plants are also considered to be very inefficient power plants. IW expert Fischer: “On the whole, nuclear power cannot solve the natural gas problem, since it is primarily about heating and heat requirements.”
Conclusion: Söder is wrong: nuclear power can neither replace gas for heating nor for electricity generation. But that has nothing to do with a lack of fuel elements, as Habeck claimed, but with the clumsiness and inefficiency of nuclear power plants. In order to secure the energy supply, Germany’s gas storage facilities will probably have to be filled with Putin’s gas until the winter. In the next few months, Russian natural gas can also be partially replaced with LNG liquid gas from the USA or the Arabian Peninsula. If this does not succeed, coal-fired power plants would have to step in to secure the power supply. The question of supply for heating would then remain open if the gas storage tanks were not full enough for the winter.
