The Greens are putting their economics minister, Habeck, under pressure not to agree to an extension of the lifetime of the nuclear power plants under any circumstances. That’s why they published a position paper that shows the dangers of nuclear power. However, the paper contains a lot of wishful thinking.
In the dispute over extending the service life of the last three nuclear power plants in Germany, the party of Economics Minister Robert Habeck has spoken out in a position paper. In it, the Greens parliamentary group describes nuclear power as a “security risk in every respect”. Politically, this assessment means that Habeck should not approve an extension of the terms if he does not want to offend his party. But how credible is the position of the Greens? Is it based on ideology or on fact? We subjected the position paper to a fact check.
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“The security of nuclear facilities is becoming alarmingly relevant as a result of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine and the nuclear power plants there. Reactors become the enemy’s weapons in their own country.”
That’s correct. Nuclear power plants are extremely secure, they can be shut down immediately in the event of war and attacks on nuclear power plants are prohibited under international law – but the war in Ukraine shows that none of this helps. Attacks on nuclear power plants with appropriate weapons can cause devastating damage to the civilian population while they are in operation. However, this also applies to chemical plants, laboratories or ammunition depots.
“Nuclear power plants will not help out of the gas crisis.”
That’s wrong. The continued operation of the three nuclear power plants still in operation in Germany and perhaps even a restart of the three reactors that were only shut down six months ago would at least alleviate the gas crisis. 13 percent of German electricity currently comes from gas-fired power plants, six percent from nuclear power. If there is no nuclear power, more must be generated with other energy sources – i.e. with coal, gas or renewable energies. If the nuclear power plants were to run longer, this proportion of electricity would not have to be replaced. The three nuclear power plants generated 33 terawatt hours of electricity last year. If you were to convert that into gas, you could heat around three million single-family homes with it. Nine million people could take a shower.
“The fact that nuclear power plants are extremely inflexible speaks against them – they can only produce electricity continuously.”
It is true that nuclear power plants are inflexible. They always deliver the same amount of electricity. But that is exactly their advantage. Conversely, a shoe is therefore made of it: one argument in favor of nuclear power plants is that they continuously produce electricity. The big catch with renewable energy is that it’s not reliable. When the wind doesn’t blow, the sun doesn’t shine and the storage tanks are exhausted, there is no electricity from renewable energy sources. Because this electricity is difficult to calculate, every power grid needs suppliers who deliver absolutely reliably. That’s what nuclear power plants do.
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“Uranium purchases in the EU fuel the business of the Russian state-owned company Rosatom and continue the existing dependence on Russia in this area.”
That’s wrong. And the position paper also exposes itself at this point, because the following sentences say: “In 2020, more than 20 percent of the natural uranium used in the EU came from Russia, another 19 percent came from Kazakhstan – a member of the Eurasian Economic Union and thus the Russian one Sphere of influence.” Conversely, this means that the significantly larger part of the uranium, namely 61 percent, does not come from Russia or Kazakhstan. In fact, Canada and Australia are currently the world’s largest suppliers of uranium, which is also found in sufficient quantities in EU countries. The fact that Russia is currently supplying uranium is also due to the fact that nuclear weapons are scrapped there and the uranium they contain is processed and sold for fuel rods.
Renewables take us out of dependency
This is wrong in the short and medium term. But right in the long run. The energy transition that has been propagated for more than two decades has led Germany to become fatally dependent on Russia. And it hasn’t made any progress: only 17 percent of the energy required in this country is currently generated from renewable energies. Despite all efforts, it has not been enough to do more. Even when it comes to pure electricity generation, renewable energies are not yet able to deliver more in the long term than the existing coal-fired power plants. Because nuclear power, oil and coal were increasingly being dispensed with as energy sources as part of the energy transition, but the renewables were not delivering, dependency on Russian gas increased. Countries like Spain and France, which have approached the energy transition differently, are therefore in a better position when it comes to energy supply. In the long term, however, renewable energies will become increasingly important and reduce dependence on other energy sources.
Conclusion: The position paper of the Greens is what it promises: a position paper. There is little in it that has to do with facts. For a governing party, that’s annoying. There are other positions that have more to do with reality.
The article “Greens rail against nuclear power in position paper – but distort facts” comes from WirtschaftsKurier.
