By Elias Sedlmayr and Sebastian Geisler
The Green Ministers Robert Habeck (53) and Steffi Lemke (54) apparently ignored the advice of their own officials when deciding against extending the lifetime of the nuclear power plants.
A report by “Welt am SONNTAG” suggests that the question of extending the service life was not examined in an open-ended manner.
According to the newspaper, Habeck’s experts even spoke out internally in favor of extending the lifetime of the nuclear power plants, but were ignored by the minister. This is substantiated by internal government documents that are available to “Welt am SONNTAG” and “Cicero”.
As early as March 1st – a few days after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine – the working group “National Affairs of Nuclear Safety” in the Ministry of the Environment issued an “approval report” on the legal and technical hurdles to a lifetime extension. Apparently on this basis, Habeck and Lemke made their rejection of a lifetime extension public on March 8th.
Now, according to “WamS”, it comes out: Counter-positions from within the ministers were categorically ignored, and an open-ended examination was not carried out.
The sheet states:
- A video link with the energy companies EnBW, E.on and RWE only took place on March 5th, when the result of the ministerial examination was already available.
- The statement by Klaus Müller, President of the Federal Network Agency, only reached the Ministry of the Environment on March 9th, i.e. several days after the “approval report” was written.
As early as March 2, the nuclear power plant operator EnBW declared that the German nuclear power plants were “on the highest safety level, even by international comparison” and that “continued operation could take place at this high safety level”. EnBW was obviously not heard by the Green ministers.
“Schizophrenia”
At that time, the Greens publicly argued that an extension of the lifetime of the nuclear power plants would have no influence on the development of electricity prices and would not save any gas. According to the “WamS” report, however, the working level of Habeck’s Ministry of Economic Affairs said that extending the service life would “reduce electricity prices and make network operation safer”.
The fact that the Green ministers are energetically campaigning for the comeback of coal and oil-fired power plants, but categorically want to take the nuclear power plants off the grid, has “a certain schizophrenia”.
Information about CO₂ reduction even deleted
Habeck apparently didn’t want to know that continuing to operate the last three German nuclear reactors would reduce CO₂ emissions. As the “Welt am SONNTAG” further reports, his ministry has calculated that the extension of the term will bring about “a reduction of around 25 to 30 million tons of CO₂ per year in the German electricity market from 2024”. According to the newspaper, this information was even deleted from the draft of the test report.
The website of the Federal Ministry for the Environment claims that there were “no ideological bans on thinking” during the test.