Germany Considering Revival of Atomic Power
Date: 27-Oct-06
Country: FRANCE
Author: Muriel Boselli
"We have to talk again of the use of nuclear," said Joachim Wuermeling, Secretary of State at the German Economy and Technology Ministry.
Germany's previous government aimed to end nuclear power production by around 2020 but Chancellor Angela Merkel said last week it was a mistake for the country to turn off nuclear power plants, even though her coalition government was committed to the plan.
Nuclear currently supplies a third of German power.
Wuermeling said the government was working on a new energy programme which it would decide on in the autumn of next year.
"We need to have a balanced energy mix because having one anchor is not enough during stormy weather," he told a Franco-German energy conference.
"In Germany, the debate has never stopped but had not been led by the government," Wuermeling told reporters on the sidelines of the conference.
He added that the debate over nuclear had resumed as a direct consequence of a rise in energy demand, an increased dependency on energy resource imports, global warming and also in the light of technological progress in the nuclear sector.
Opinion polls regularly show the vast majority of the public is opposed to any further extension of nuclear power.
But Wuermeling said it would be wrong to scrap nuclear until it was clear that renewable sources could replace it.
"We have to think before we cut off the tree branch and before we know whether renewables can fill in the gap," he said.
The previous Social Democrat (SPD) and Greens government passed laws gradually decommissioning nuclear power stations. Merkel's Christian Democrats narrowly beat the SPD in a 2005 election but were forced into a coalition with the SPD.
The SPD said the nuclear phase-out was not negotiable. Merkel agreed to that last year even though other conservatives, especially Economy Minister Michael Glos, had called for the phase-out to be scrapped due to rising oil prices.
