Nuclear power: NRW Economics Minister considers a term of up to 2029 possible

DSSELDORF (dpa-AFX) – North Rhine-Westphalia’s Economics Minister Andreas Pinkwart (FDP) considers it possible to extend the service life of the three remaining nuclear power plants in Germany until 2029. In the short term, the federal government does not see any contribution to securing the security of the electricity supply in the continued operation. For the period from 2023 to 2029, however, “there is still no final decision to forego this option. That’s how I understand it,” Pinkwart told journalists in Dsseldorf on Tuesday.

According to Pinkwart, in 2019 the power plants were not scheduled to be serviced every ten years, with reference to the short remaining service life. If they were now fundamentally checked, “then you could also let them run from 23 to 29, that would also be worthwhile from an economic point of view,” said the minister.

Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) said at the end of February: “Nuclear power would not help us for the winter of 2022/23.” The preparations for the forthcoming shutdowns are so far advanced that the nuclear power plants can continue to be operated “only with the greatest safety concerns and possibly with fuel supplies that have not yet been secured”. “And we certainly don’t want that.”

Pinkwart said that he shares the evaluation of the Federal Ministry of Economics in the short term. “But for the medium term, like everything else, you have to weigh that up.” With a gas embargo you need alternatives. “In this respect, the option would have to be examined further and weighed against other alternatives.”

Pinkwart also cited climate protection as an argument in favor of nuclear power. Now that gas has become a “scarce factor”, coal can be taken out of the grid less quickly. “Or we make a mix in which we leave nuclear energy longer in the network and use the coal as a safety reserve.” In this context, Pinkwart spoke of three to four gigawatts of generation capacity for nuclear power plants and three to four gigawatts for coal-fired power plants. “If we don’t use nuclear energy, we’re really only left with coal and then we’ll have to deal with higher emissions.”/tob/DP/nas