Skip to main content

Germany's Moratorium on Nuclear Energy Pushes Up Electricity Prices

The moratorium on nuclear power announced last month by German Chancellor Angela Merkel shortly after the accident at Fukushima Daiichi already is driving up energy prices and raising concern about the reliability of the nation’s electricity supply, according to Bloomberg News. Nuclear energy supplies about one-quarter of the nation’s electricity. Natural gas from Russia is seen as the logical replacement, should Germany follow through on closing out its nuclear plants. The country already imports one-third of its natural gas from Russia.
Merkel’s pledge to speed the exit from atomic power after the crisis in Japan is helping push natural-gas prices higher as Germany scrambles to identify energy alternatives. Gas supplied by [Russia's] OAO Gazprom may be the easiest way for her to meet Germany’s climate goals and keep Europe’s largest economy running.
The statements from Merkel represent a turnabout, which may relate more to politics than issues related to nuclear safety:
Pressured by a regional election loss amid a surge in support for the Greens, Merkel ... said on March 28 that her "view on nuclear energy has changed.” The result is “a nuclear witch-hunt” that may result in more than seven reactor closures, said Lueder Schumacher, an analyst at UniCredit SpA in London. “So far the public debate in Germany has focused on the desire to exit nuclear energy with little thought being spared as to what is actually going to replace it.”
It didn't take long for the policy shift on nuclear energy to affect energy prices:
German power for next year has risen about 10 percent since Merkel’s announcement, reaching its highest price in more than 19 months on April 4. ...Gas for delivery in 2013 cost 7 percent more at the Dutch-based Endex TTF gas exchange yesterday.
One German utility, RWE AG, has filed a lawsuit challenging the shutdown of its Biblis A nuclear plant. The company's chief executive officer said power shortages may be looming. Two days after his company filed suit:
Juergen Grossmann warned ... of “more frequent power outages, say two, three days a year.”
The CEO also expressed concern that “some of the industrial foundation of our country will be lost.” Merkel is scheduled to discuss Germany's energy policy at meeting April 15 with the nation's 16 state prime ministers.

Meanwhile, Germany is supplementing its electricity supply with increased imports from neighboring countries that rely on nuclear energy. According to the German Association of Energy and Water Industries, Germany doubled its imports of electricity from France in the second half of March and currently imports the capacity equivalent of 1.5 reactors from France and the Czech Republic every day.
ENTSO-E, the Brussels-based group overseeing Europe's electricity grid and tracking cross-border flows, confirmed that Germany turned from exporting to importing electricity toward the end of March.

Comments

jimwg said…
Such a stupid knee-jerk PC reaction from a completely unrelated incident.

James Greenidge

Popular posts from this blog

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu

Why Ex-Im Bank Board Nominations Will Turn the Page on a Dysfunctional Chapter in Washington

In our present era of political discord, could Washington agree to support an agency that creates thousands of American jobs by enabling U.S. companies of all sizes to compete in foreign markets? What if that agency generated nearly billions of dollars more in revenue than the cost of its operations and returned that money – $7 billion over the past two decades – to U.S. taxpayers? In fact, that agency, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank), was reauthorized by a large majority of Congress in 2015. To be sure, the matter was not without controversy. A bipartisan House coalition resorted to a rarely-used parliamentary maneuver in order to force a vote. But when Congress voted, Ex-Im Bank won a supermajority in the House and a large majority in the Senate. For almost two years, however, Ex-Im Bank has been unable to function fully because a single Senate committee chairman prevented the confirmation of nominees to its Board of Directors. Without a quorum

NEI Praises Connecticut Action in Support of Nuclear Energy

Earlier this week, Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed SB-1501 into law, legislation that puts nuclear energy on an equal footing with other non-emitting sources of energy in the state’s electricity marketplace. “Gov. Malloy and the state legislature deserve praise for their decision to support Dominion’s Millstone Power Station and the 1,500 Connecticut residents who work there," said NEI President and CEO Maria Korsnick. "By opening the door to Millstone having equal access to auctions open to other non-emitting sources of electricity, the state will help preserve $1.5 billion in economic activity, grid resiliency and reliability, and clean air that all residents of the state can enjoy," Korsnick said. Millstone Power Station Korsnick continued, "Connecticut is the third state to re-balance its electricity marketplace, joining New York and Illinois, which took their own legislative paths to preserving nuclear power plants in 2016. Now attention should