Photo: Bloomberg LP
In 2021, energy prices in Europe soared. The shortage of natural gas has frightened many countries that the raw material will not be available in the winter and the price has reached record levels, and since gas is the main source of electricity production, the price of electricity has also risen sharply, according to a Bloomberg analysis.
Against this background, Germany closed three nuclear power plants and plans to shut down its last reactors by the end of 2022. One might wonder why a country is giving up a low-emission energy source when planning an energy transition. Especially if it is going to fill the energy shortage with much more polluting coal (in the absence of enough gas).
The answer is not so simple.
In reality, Germany gave up its nuclear power plants in 2000, when there was no comment on energy transformation and the EU’s Green Deal. Parliament then decided to abandon uranium power plants, fearing a nuclear accident like the one at Chernobyl in 1986.
Then-Chancellor Angela Merkel, a graduate physicist, did her best. possible to extend the life of operating reactors, but promised not to build new plants. And after the tsunami that struck the Fukushima plant, in 2011 the country’s parliament again raised the issue of abandoning nuclear energy. Many calls have been heard in the country to speed up the process as much as possible.
What do the data on electricity production in Germany in 2010 and 2021 show? The share of nuclear power plants is twice as small, but this does not lead to an increase in coal production or natural gas production. During these years, Germany has increasingly relied on renewable energy sources for electricity production.
Source: Bloomberg
But of course, these data cannot be analyzed without the addition that green energy received huge subsidies in the early years. Thus, German taxpayers paid billions (in the form of guaranteed prices) for the development of the sector. Demand for solar panels has turned out to be so high that new companies have been set up in China to produce them, and the massiveness of the process has led to a significant drop in prices.
The current ruling coalition plans to speed up the introduction of green energy and expectations are for a real boom. And the price of solar and wind energy today is significantly lower than already built fossil fuel power plants.
Would Germany be able to achieve its environmental goals faster if not was giving up nuclear power plants? Almost certainly, for example, Britain. The country has extended the life of its rectors and even started building new ones in recent years. That is why the plans are to close its coal-fired power plants as early as 2024, or six years earlier than Germany.
Because of coal, Berlin has failed to meet its climate targets in the last two years, and probably the same will happen in the next two years. This calls into question Germany’s ability to become a carbon-neutral economy in 2045.
Without basic nuclear power, Germany will have to rely on fossil fuels to fill deficits , especially against the background of the planned expansion of electric cars. Given that the plans are to abandon coal in 2030, the only option remains natural gas and Germany plans to use it for bridge technology. One day, the plans call for gas to be replaced by green hydrogen, according to Bloomberg.
At the same time, Britain and Japan plan to use nuclear energy for bridge technology and have a longer and more important role in the energy transition.
For the time being, however, the Germans do not intend to return to nuclear power plants, but will most likely have to open their bags once again – for the development of storage technologies of energy to support green capacities. Because the theory is simple – remove the dirty production and replace it with green power. Meanwhile, energy efficiency measures reduce consumption.
However, the reality may not be so cloudless.
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