Angela Merkel has won a victory on Sunday night, tearing off its government partners a compromise on extending the lifetime of nuclear power plants. The Chancellor may well hope to put an end to ten months of internal guerrilla who waved his center-right coalition on this issue. However, it is still far from having won the battle over civil nuclear power, which runs down the street with an opinion fiercely opposed to atomic energy, and German courts.
Berlin has decided to grant the 17 reactors in the country a reprieve further twelve years on average, ranging from eight years for those built before 1980, fourteen years for the most recent. Applying this range, the last German reactor stop beating around 2040, according to calculations by the press.But the date is far from being firm, because the operators could quickly condemn the old plants and transfer the years and won on the reactors lately.
The opposition Social Democrats and the Greens – whose government led by Gerhard Schröder had set off the 2022 German nuclear power plants – has already promised to challenge the decision in court. Merkel hopes to circumvent the Bundesrat, the upper house of Parliament, where it has no majority. Ultimately, the very independent Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe will decide whether the government is entitled to bypass the states for a decision affecting them so close. This will inevitably be one of the main themes of the six regional elections scheduled for 2011.The first antinuclear demonstrations are announced for September 18 at the call of the opposition and antinuclear groups.
"Energy Transition"
Allergic to the atom, as a majority of Germans, environmentalists denounced the risk of attacks and accidents related to the extension of plant operations. And they say that it will delay the development of renewable energy … point on which expert opinions vary. "We need nuclear and coal as energy transition," he assured the Chancellor. The civil nuclear will not be used "only as long as is necessary" to "reach the age of renewables," said Angela Merkel.She has promised to invest in renewable energy – wind farms in the North Sea, photovoltaic and biomass – from 2013 revenues from the sale by the state of "rights to pollute" to companies.
The experts appointed by the government had considered four scenarios extension (4, 12, 20 and 28 years), did not arrive at two conclusions. The first is nuclear-free Germany can bury its ambitious target of reducing CO2 emissions (80% decrease in 2050 compared to 1990). And if the country adheres to the timetable established by the Schröder government, its CO2 emissions will decline only by 62% by 2050.
The second: a lengthening of the life of the reactors would cost up to 36 billion euros. The calculation includes all fees, expenses to enhance security and the financing of a development fund for renewable energy.The government has stressed that groups reactor owners should pay a fuel tax of 2.3 billion euros per year. That did not stop the surge in stock prices of the energy groups E. ON, RWE, EnBW and Vattenfall, which share the market. The additional costs of operating that engulfed half the expected huge profits.
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