German Chancellor Angela Merkel (PICTURE: REUTERS)
France warns Germany about dependence on alternative power
| GREGORY VISCUSI & TARA PATEL |
Published: 2011/05/31 07:23:57 AM |
THE German government’s decision to close all its nuclear plants in a decade would lead to greater dependence on fossil fuels, increase carbon emissions and require imported atomic power, France’s industry minister said yesterday.
"Germany will be even more dependent on fossil fuels and imports, and its electricity will be more expensive and polluting," Industry Minister Eric Besson said after Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition yesterday said all Germany’s 17 reactors would close by 2022.
German households paid twice as much for power than homes in France, where 80% of electricity comes from atomic plants, he said.
Germany’s move reverses a plan pushed through parliament last year to extend the operation of the facilities by about 12 years. Ms Merkel has said Japan’s Fukushima disaster, the worst nuclear crisis since 1986, forced her to rethink her support for atomic power.
"It’s hard to see how they will replace the energy," Anne Lauvergeon, CEO of state-run Areva, the world’s biggest maker of nuclear equipment, said in Paris. "I’m not sure there is enough Polish coal, and it creates carbon problems. Alternative energy sources are intermittent sources. I think they will do what Austria did in its time: import nuclear electricity from neighbouring countries."
The move "will result in higher electricity costs in Germany, with consequences for industry", said Ms Lauvergeon.
With the possibility that a federal election in 2013 may result in a new government, Ms Merkel is seeking broad backing from Germany’s broadly antinuclear voters for revamping nuclear policy.
Coalition divisions over the timing of a phase-out deepened after the Greens finished ahead of Ms Merkel’s Christian Democrats in Bremen state on May 22. Ms Merkel said last week she would await a feasibility study on a quicker phase- out before setting a date.
Ms Merkel’s Free Democrats coalition partners, backed by the BDI industry group, urged her to show flexibility in the run-up to 2022. Free Democrats chairman Philipp Roesler said his party advocated a phased shutdown to avert a power gap. The Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party to the Christian Democrats, preferred a date of 2021.
Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen said there would be no revision clause, meaning there was "clarity about the end" of nuclear power in Germany, and that this could not be reversed.
The Christian Democrats’ "Wirtschaftsrat", or council of affiliated companies, said Ms Merkel’s "go-it-alone" nuclear policy in Europe may add billions of euros to power bills paid by industry and consumers. "I’ve heard lots about a phase-out of nuclear power but little about the costs of phasing in renewable energy," its president, Kurt Lauk, said in Berlin.
Germany is Europe’s largest power market, followed by France. Germany last year was a net exporter of power to France, sending 16,1 terawatt hours to the country compared with imports of 9,4 terawatt hours, according to data published by grid operator Reseau de Transport d’Electricite.
This trend was reversed last month following the accident at Fukushima and the subsequent decision by Ms Merkel to halt Germany’s oldest reactors.
In April, France was a net exporter of power to Germany for the first time since the summer months of June, July and August last year, according to Reseau de Transport.
Ms Merkel has repeatedly said that Germany must remain a net exporter of energy, stressing that there was no point closing German nuclear plants only to import nuclear power from other countries. France has increasingly imported power in recent years amid cold snaps and heat waves when electricity provided by atomic reactors needs to be supplemented by other sources.
Unlike in Germany, polls have shown the French to be more ambivalent about nuclear energy. A TNS Sofres poll in March indicated just 19% of respondents wanted a rapid reversal of reliance on atomic power. Bloomberg, Reuters
No comments:
Post a Comment