Nuclear Plants

Germany's Trittin Wants Speedy Nuclear Shutdown
Fox News, August 21, 1999

German Environment Minister Juergen Trittin wants to shut six nuclear power plants by 2003, the news magazine Spiegel said on Saturday. The remaining 13 nuclear reactors would be phased out by 2025, Spiegel said, citing internal documents from the Environment Ministry. The ministry declined to comment on the report. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's red-green coalition has pledged to phase out nuclear power, but the pace at which the shutdown takes place has driven a wedge between Schroeder's Social Democrats and their ecologist Greens junior coalition partners. Trittin, one of three Greens in the cabinet, is in charge of the shutdown and he wants a speedy end to nuclear power.

The big utilities, which include RWE AG, VEBA AG, Viag AG and Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg, have threatened to sue for damages if they lose any money because of the shutdown. Economics Minister Werner Mueller, who was formerly a senior executive in the nuclear industry, has come up with a plan to limit the operating life of nuclear plants to 35 years. Under the Mueller plan, the first German nuclear plant would go offline in 2003. Spiegel said the Environment Ministry's calculations showed that nuclear plant operators recouped their investments within 15 to 20 years. The 25-year timeframe will allow the utilities to cover any losses from shutting down the plants, Spiegel reported. Nuclear power generates about one third of the country's electricity.