‘Only thing reliable from Russia is lies’: Faced with energy crisis Germany takes a U-turn to nuclear energy
Faced with an energy crisis at the hands of Russia, Germany has taken a U-turn from its plans of a nuclear exit and announced on Monday that it would keep two of its nuclear plants on standby beyond the end of this year.
This comes a Russia has shut off gas supplies to Europe. After a three-day maintenance period last week, Russian energy giant Gazprom announced that gas deliveries via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline would not resume as scheduled. It blamed Western sanctions for the decision.
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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “problems with pumping (gas) arose due to sanctions that were imposed against” Russia.
Economy Minister Robert Habeck announced in a statement that following a fresh network stress test, two of the three remaining power plants will “remain available until mid-April 2023 in case needed.”
The facilities as per AFP would be held in reserve in case they were needed to “make a further contribution to the electricity grid in southern Germany,” where the development of renewable energy lagged behind that of the north.
According to Habeck, such a crisis is still “very unlikely” because Germany has “very high security of supply.”
The Green Minister also emphasised that Germany was sticking to its plan to abandon nuclear power, with all plants being disconnected from the grid at the end of the year, and that it was not reversing course.
New fuel rods won’t be installed, and the reserve programme will end after mid-April 2023, according to Habeck.
The decision partially postpones a nuclear phase-out that was envisioned under the previous chancellor Angela Merkel, who decided to abandon nuclear power in 2011 in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan.
Habeck remarked that it was “not a surprise” that Moscow did not resume gas deliveries via Nord Stream 1.
He said, “The only thing that is reliable from Russia is lies” adding that “we will have to solve our problems without consideration of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s erratic decisions, and that’s what we will do.”
In Germany, where nuclear power has long been a topic of dispute even before Merkel’s decision, extending the lifetime of the plants, which produce 6 per cent of the nation’s electricity, has sparked a fierce debate.
(With inputs from agencies)
