ANALYSIS - Will Europe follow German nuclear shutdown?
Date: 19-Jun-00
Country: GERMANY
Author: Mark John
Although by no means the final split with the power source embraced by the
continent 40 years ago to drive its post-war reconstruction, Germany's decision
this week to phase out atomic energy in something over two decades had huge
potential to influence decisions across Europe, analysts said.
"It is a big psychological boost to the anti-nuclear lobby and a psychological
blow to the nuclear industry - it will hurt investment," said Frank Barnaby, an
independent nuclear consultant working for Britain's Oxford Research Group.
"The decision raises the question: 'If they can do it, could we?'," he added.
By winning a commitment from the energy industry to wind down all 19 German
nuclear plants, Europe's largest economy has formalised a development already
making itself felt elsewhere.
With the exception of France, which draws three-quarters of its electricity from
nuclear power and is the only Western country to plan more reactors, companies
and governments across Europe are re-examining their use of atomic power.
THE END OF THE AFFAIR
In a pioneering move based on a 1980 referendum decision, Sweden shut its first
reactor last November as part of a plan for a complete withdrawal of nuclear
power mirroring Germany's.
Switzerland and Spain have imposed moratoriums on further construction of
reactors, while Belgium has set a long-term phase-out plan for its seven plants
and the Dutch government has called for the closure of its last atomic power
station.
While Britain has said it believes nuclear energy still has a future role to
play, it has nonetheless set a timetable for the closure of a number of old
reactors still producing around eight percent of its electricity.
"The German decision to end nuclear power production is only the spectacular sign
of a phenomenon already underway around the world for quite a while - the falling
out of love with nuclear power," France's left-wing daily Liberation wrote on
Friday.
Nowhere was this trend more marked, however, than in Germany, where Chancellor
Gerhard Schroeder's centre-left coalition with the ecologist Greens spelled the
end to the political support the industry enjoyed for years under his predecessor
Helmut Kohl.
"Building a new nuclear plant is no longer economically viable now anyway," said
Dietmar Kuhnt, chief of utility RWE, which along with Veba, Viag and EnBW has
been locked in damage-limitation talks with the government over the move for 18
months.
With no prospect of industrial subsidies, a public as suspicious as ever of the
power form and a government determined to apply to the letter increasingly
tighter safety standards, nuclear power was already losing its business promise
fast.
While planned law changes setting out the withdrawal can be repealed by a future
government, the race by companies and employees to re-invest and re-train in
other areas may mean any reversal bid will simply come too late.
The resonance of the move was already being felt outside Germany on Friday as
shares in Danish wind turbine-makers Vestas and NEG Micon surged on expectations
of big new orders from Germany to make up for the lost power.
HOW TO FILL THE ATOMIC GAP?
Such hopes, however, might be premature.
Proponents of nuclear power insist there are still compelling reasons for using
and investing in the energy form.
High among these is the question of how power production lost in a phase-out of
nuclear fuel is to be replaced.
Increased use of "green" energy forms would require large and lengthy investment.
Topping up with carbon-based fuel forms would mean more of the globe-warming
"greenhouse gases" that Europe has committed itself to reducing.
Moreover, the German move was based on a prevailing political will that is not
evident elsewhere in Europe.
Despite its moratorium on new plants, Switzerland for one is resisting calls for
operating deadlines on its existing plant amid the feeling such
