Christian Democrats in Germany have launched a bid to rescue what remains of the country’s nuclear power sector after attempts by the Greens to eradicate the technology.
Greens politicians, who serve within the country’s traffic-light government, have presided over the complete removal of domestic nuclear power from the Germany’s energy grid, even opting to destroy decommissioned facilities in part to ensure they were not reactivated in the future.
MPs within the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union of Bavaria have published a new policy paper that included plans on undoing the handiwork of their rival Greens.
The cooling towers of the last nuclear power plant in Germany 🇩🇪 were demolished today.
This is how economic self-destruction looks like.
pic.twitter.com/qW5gbXSoWV— Dr. Eli David (@DrEliDavid) August 16, 2024
Titled the New Energy Agenda for Germany, the plan involved examining whether the plants that have avoided destruction could be put back into service. At the same time, it advocated for the construction of new plants and the installation of advanced modular nuclear reactors.
“Shutting down nuclear power plants in 2023 in the middle of the energy crisis was an ideologically motivated wrong decision by the traffic-light coalition,” the paper read.
It went on to call for the phase-out of coal in the country to be delayed until 2038. Other fossil fuel sources — especially natural gas — should not be discriminated against so long as they could be made to align with the country’s climate and energy strategy.
Speaking about the paper, CDU energy tsar Jens Spahn emphasised that if the country truly wanted to implement its “green” transition ambitions it would have to make energy cheaper for citizens and businesses.
“No more energy transition without a decisive cost turnaround,” he told Bild on November 4, adding that his faction now wanted to put nuclear “back on the agenda”.
“The traffic-light coalition is creating the most expensive and inefficient energy policy in the world in Germany. This must stop.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said that Europe needed “more nuclear”, marking a departure from her previous, more sceptical stance. https://t.co/uu1tYYJLE8
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) September 2, 2024
