Germany’s leading power utilities have declined to extend the life of their last operating nuclear power plants beyond a government-imposed deadline to shut them down by the end of the year amid calls to keep them running to reduce dependence on Russian gas in the wake of Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Germany has been phasing out nuclear power since 2000 and is scheduled to shut down its last three nuclear power plants this year.
Günther Oettinger, a conservative politician and former European Union commissioner, has urged Germany and the power utilities to reconsider and asked the utilities to keep their nuclear plants running beyond the deadline.
“Nuclear power is no longer an issue in Germany. It wouldn’t even be possible to restart the power plants in the short-term,” Markus Krebber, CEO of German energy company RWE AG, told Germany’s Rheinische Post newspaper.
Spokesmen for German utilities E.On SE and Energie Baden-Württemberg AG, known as EnBW, said their companies also rejected reopening a debate about nuclear power in Germany.
The German Economy Ministry said on Friday that it wasn’t considering ordering the country’s last three nuclear power plants to operate beyond their planned shutdown later this year.
Source: WSJ
