EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has described the move away from nuclear power as a “strategic mistake”. FOCUS online asked two experts to rate the pros and cons. Below you can read Veronika Wendland’s pro-nuclear opinion. Here you can find Volker Quaschning’s contra view.

Germany’s nuclear phase-out was a strategic mistake. In view of the ongoing geopolitical upheavals, the Federal Republic will have to keep strategic industries in the country.

These include artificial intelligence (AI), climate-friendly steel, chemistry and pharmaceuticals. Industries that require a lot of electricity. We will either run them on nuclear power or not at all.

Germany has switched off 20 gigawatts of low-carbon electricity

Germany missed its chance by phasing out nuclear power. With the German nuclear power plants we have lost around 20 gigawatts of secured power, which was already low in CO2.

Approximately the same amount of power is available on the grid in Germany today on an annual average. In the form of coal and gas power plants, as a backup for volatile renewable energies. Climate-friendly, cheap, secure and plannable – an energy system based on sun and wind does not meet these requirements.

At least not under German weather and seasonal conditions. As soon as the volatile generators have to be turned into guaranteed output, their system costs rise. Keywords: network expansion, fossil backup, storage, redispatch.

Chernobyl and Fukushima: No valid counterarguments

In addition, renewables are subsidized far too expensively in Germany – German citizens pay around 15 billion euros annually for EEG subsidies alone. That would be enough money to save and modernize the last six to nine nuclear power plants that have been taken off the grid.

The Chernobyl and Fukushima reactor accidentswhich are given as a reason for Germany’s nuclear phase-out, are not, in my view (and the view of most reactor safety experts), a valid argument. The reason: They cannot be transferred to German nuclear power plants thanks to their more robust safety features.

Different laws are needed for nuclear innovation

It is uncertain whether Small Modular Reactors (SMR), as the EU is now promoting them, would be a real breakthrough. We don’t yet have a system that is licensed in the EU and that could be built here.

We also need so much electricity for decarbonization that the licensed, orderable generation 3+ power reactors would actually be more suitable: large pressurized water reactors with advanced, passive safety features. Nevertheless, I think it is a good idea to advance research and development of SMRs. Germany should not sideline itself.

No matter which plant – modernization of the existing one, new construction of proven or new reactor concepts – in order to operate nuclear power plants again in this country, you would first need a change to the nuclear law.

The SPD should be careful with its nuclear veto

The SPD has broken with the legacy of the otherwise revered Chancellor Helmut Schmidt (SPD). He was an advocate of nuclear energy until his death. Actually, the pro-nuclear stance was a great tradition of the SPD as an industrial workers’ party.

But both the nuclear power plants and the workers have been lost to the SPD. SPD Environment Minister Carsten Schneider has even decreed Germany will never have nuclear energy again. If I were him, I would be cautious after the many “sneezes” we’ve seen fall in recent years.

Perhaps the insight will come when the next economic forecasts arrive. The European industrialized countries most successful in decarbonization are pursuing a combined strategy of renewables and nuclear energy and have significantly lower electricity costs than Germany. We should orientate ourselves on them.