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10.05.2011 13:09
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Only 10 out of the 21 nuclear reactors in Germany are currently running and there haven't been any power outages, suggesting that government plans to drop nuclear could be realized quicker than expected, UPI reported as quoted by energydelta.org.
In March, at the height of the nuclear crisis in Japan, German Chancellor Angela Merkel decided to shut down for three months seven of Germany's oldest reactors to test their safety, adding they may not be restarted.
Three more reactors were taken offline May 1 for technical overhauls. Another reactor, the error-prone Kruemmel, has been idle since the summer of 2009.
The industry cried foul, with E.ON claiming that the government-imposed closure of the utility's reactors would drain profits by around USD 360 million.
RWE has warned that a speedy exit from nuclear power, which ahead of the Japan crisis supplied nearly one-fourth of Germany's electricity demand, would lead to grid instability and power outages.
"More than half of all German nuclear power plants are offline but our power supply remains stable," Dietmar Schuetz, head of the German renewable energy industry association BEE told the Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper. "Until 2020 at the latest, power from the sun, wind, water and biomass can easily replace nuclear power."
Experts expect the government's new energy strategy, to be unveiled next month, to bank on renewables, efficient coal- and natural gas-fired power plants and a modernization of Germany's aging power grid, which is seen unfit to transport large amounts of renewable power through the country.
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