Germany has shut down its last three nuclear power plants, and some climate scientists are aghast
16 April 2023, Baden-Württemberg, Neckarwestheim: The Neckarwestheim nuclear power plant. The era of commercial power generation with nuclear power plants in Germany came to an end on Saturday with the separation of the Isar 2, Neckarwestheim and Emsland nuclear power plants from the power grid.
Picture Alliance | Picture Alliance | Getty Images
As of Sunday, April 16, Germany is no longer producing any electricity from nuclear power plants.
Closures of the Emsland, Isar II, and Neckarwestheim II nuclear plants in Germany were expected. The country announced plans to phase out nuclear power in 2011. In the fall of 2022, with the Ukraine war constraining access to energy especially in Europe, Germany decided to keep these existing nuclear reactors operating for an additional few months to bolster supplies.
“This was a highly anticipated action. The German government extended the lifetimes of these plants for a few months, but never planned beyond that,” David Victor, a professor of innovation and public policy at UC San Diego, told CNBC.
Responses to the closures ranged from aghast that Germany would shut down a clean source of energy production while global response to anthropogenic climate change continues to be insufficient, to celebratory that the country will avoid any nuclear accidents like those that have happened in other parts of the world.
‘The whole thing is incomprehensible’
A collection of esteemed scientists, including two Nobel laureates and professors from the likes of MIT and Columbia, made a last-minute plea in an open letter published on April 14 on the nuclear advocacy group’s website, RePlaneteers, to keep the reactors operating.
“In view of the threat that climate change poses to life on our planet and the obvious energy crisis in which Germany and Europe find themselves due to the unavailability of Russian natural gas, we call on you to continue operating the last remaining German nuclear power plants,” the letter states.
The Emsland, Isar II and Neckarwestheim II facilities provided more than 10 million German households with electricity, the open letter states. That’s a quarter of the population.
“This is hugely disappointing, when a secure low carbon 24/7 source of energy such as nuclear was available and could have continued operation for another 40 years,” Henry Preston, spokesperson for the World Nuclear Association, told CNBC. “Germany’s nuclear industry has been world class. All three of those reactors shut down at the weekend performed extremely well.”
16 April 2023, Lower Saxony, Lingen: View of the defunct cooling tower of the Emsland nuclear power plant. With the separation of the Isar 2, Neckarwestheim and Emsland nuclear power plants from the power grid, the era of commercial power generation with nuclear power plants in Germany came to an end on Saturday.
Picture Alliance | Picture Alliance | Getty Images
Despite the shutdown, some segments of nuclear industrial processes will continue to operate. “Germany’s nuclear sector will continue to be first class in the wider nuclear supply chain in areas such as fuel fabrication and decommissioning,” Preston told CNBC.
While the open letter did not succeed in keeping the nuclear reactors open, it does underscore a crucial reason why nuclear power has been part of global energy conversations recently, after a generational lull in the construction of nuclear power plants: climate change.
Generating electricity with nuclear reactors does not create any greenhouse gases. And as global climate change response efforts continue to fall short of emission targets, nuclear energy is getting renewed consideration.
“Obviously many people in the nuclear industry are disappointed that the government that cares a lot about climate change is shutting massive sources of zero-carbon electric power,” Victor told CNBC.
That view was echoed by Hans von Storch, a climate researcher at the Institute for Coastal Research in Geesthacht, Germany, and a signatory of the open letter, told CNBC.
“While a legitimate decision, it is not a wise decision,” Storch told CNBC. “This out-phasing of nuclear, with existing plants, leads to an increase of greenhouse gas emissions in Germany, even though according to another political decision, the fast decarbonization should have priority.”
“For me, as a climate scientist, the whole thing is incomprehensible,” Storch told CNBC.
Anti-nuclear movement supporters gather to celebrate the shuttering of Germany’s last nuclear power plants on April 15, 2023 in Munich, Germany. Emsland, Neckarwestheim 2 and Isar 2 are Germany’s last three operating nuclear power plants and are scheduled to cease operation tonight. Their closure was originally scheduled for December 31 of 2022, though Germany’s government coalition extended their operation due to the turbulent energy market resulting from Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine. The shuttering of the plants marks a historic chapter in German history and is being celebrated by Germany’s decades-old, grassroots anti-nuclear movement.
Johannes Simon | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Fear of accidents and a focus on renewables
The German government says it is making the country safer by closing down the nuclear reactors.
“The nuclear phase-out makes Germany safer and avoids additional high-level radioactive waste. The risks of nuclear power are ultimately unmanageable. No insurance in the world covers the potentially catastrophic extent of damage from a nuclear accident,” a spokesperson for the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection in Germany told CNBC.
On June 30, 2011, “the nuclear phase-out law was passed with a broad, nonpartisan majority,” the spokesperson told CNBC.
Volker Quaschning, a professor of renewable energy at the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin, supports Germany closing its nuclear reactors because of the risk of an accident.
“Nuclear energy is a risky technology. During the Chernobyl reactor accident, Germany was hit by radioactive fallout. A reactor accident in Germany would make large parts of the country uninhabitable. In the course of global uncertainties, the risks for nuclear energy are also increasing,” Quaschning told CNBC.
Also, radioactive waste management is “still unsolved in Germany,” Quaschning told CNBC. “No one in Germany wants a repository for highly radioactive waste near them.”
Instead, the European country says it is focused on building out its wind and solar energy production. By 2030, Germany aims to generate 80 percent of its electricity from renewable energy sources like wind and solar. “We are now putting the policies in place for this and adapting the necessary legislation,” the German government spokesperson told CNBC.
Turning off the nuclear reactors opens the doors for renewables to be the future of energy, Niklas Höhne, a professor the mitigation of greenhouse gases at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, told CNBC.
“In the German context, the phase-out of nuclear energy is good for the climate in the long term. It provides investment certainty for renewable energy; renewables will be much faster, cheaper and safer than expansion of nuclear energy,” Höhne told CNBC.
Nuclear energy is also often more expensive than wind and solar power, Quaschning said, adding, “there are no longer any real advantages with nuclear energy.”
“Nuclear power plants are a hindrance to the energy transition. They are not able to run in stop-and-go mode and cannot really compensate for power fluctuations that arise when using solar and wind energy. With Germany looking to expand solar and wind power very rapidly over the next few years, now is a good time to shut down nuclear reactors to make way for renewable energy,” he said.
GM has scrapped plans to build $55 million hydrogen fuel cell factory in Detroit, triggering a tsunami of headlines about the General’s future plans for hydrogen. The reality? GM isn’t scaling back its hydrogen efforts. It’s thinking bigger.
The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.
MARK TWAIN (sort of)
Like the great Sam Clemens, there seems to be plenty of confidence in the greater automotive press that GM’s decision to cancel a $55 millions fuel cell plant on the former Michigan State Fairgrounds site in Detroit. That plant, a JV with Southeast Michigan’s Piston Automotive, would have created ~140 jobs and built compact hydrogen fuel cells for light- and medium-duty vehicles under the Hydrotec brand.
That plan, frankly, was never going to work. It was always a cynical incentive grab and the first fruits of GM’s Hydrotec efforts were so laughably far behind the state of the electric art that the facts themselves blurred the line between satire and reality. Which, of course, didn’t matter – as long as the incentive money (Biden’s Department of Energy awarded GM $30 million in grants for the State Fairgrounds plant) kept flowing.
The new Trump Administration put an end to that flow last week, however, terminating 321 financial awards for clean energy worth $7.56 billion.
“Certainly the decisions of the DOE are an element of that overall climate but not the only driver,” explained GM spokesperson, Stuart Fowle, in a statement. “We want to prioritize the engineering talent and resources and everything we have to continuing to advance EVs given hydrogen is in a different spot.”
That spot is heavy-duty, off-highway, maritime, and data centers.
Bigger trucks, bigger fuel cells
Instead of dying, GM is continuing on the hydrogen fuel cell it’s been on for literal decades – with no plans (publicly, at least) to shutter its Fuel Cell System Manufacturing joint-venture with Honda in Brownstown Township, MI.
That company is not just developing HFCs, they’re out there selling fuel cells today, to extreme-duty, disaster response, and off-highway equipment customers operating far enough off the grid that access to electricity is questionable and to data center developers for whom access to a continuous flow of energy is mission-critical.
Electrek’s Take
Fuel cells like the ones from GM and Honda will continue to seem like a good idea … for about as long as it takes the heavy equipment guys to watch a ZQUIP video.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Detroit News, FreightWaves, Yahoo!Finance.
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EVs are great, and can unlock more transportation convenience with the ease of charging at home. But for apartment-dwellers, this can be a complicated conversation. So a nonprofit called Forth is here to help, through its Charge at Home program.
One of the main benefits of an electric vehicle is in the convenience of owning and charging the car in the place it spends most of its time. Instead of having to go out of your way to fuel it, you just park it at home, in the same place it spends at least 8 hours a day, and you leave the house every day with a full charge.
But this benefit only applies to those with a consistent parking space which they can easily install charging at. When talking about owners who live in apartment buildings, it can sometimes get more complicated.
While certain states have passed “right to charge” laws to give apartment-dwellers a solution for home charging, apartment charging is nevertheless a bit of a patchwork solution so far.
And as a result of this, EV ownership among apartment renters lags behind that of single-family homeowners. It’s clear that apartments are holding back people from buying EVs, and that’s bad – lots of people live in apartments, and the gas those cars use pollutes the air just as much as any other.
Certain areas where EVs have hit a point of critical mass (namely, the large California cities) have pretty good EV ownership among renters, but it could still be better. And residents are clamoring more and more for easy EV charging in apartment communities.
So, Forth, a nonprofit advocating for equitable access to clean transportation, set up a program called Charge at Home, which is meant to connect renters, apartment building owners or other decisionmakers with resources to help install chargers at multifamily properties.
The site lets you select your situation – a resident or a decisionmaker for a new or existing multifamily development – and then gives you access to tools for your specific situation, whether you be a resident and developer.
The site houses links to help design a multifamily project, find electricians, inform you about right to charge laws or available incentives, and provide case studies, among others.
Charge at Home also hosts roundtable webinars periodically, and includes a library of past webinars with the information you need.
There are a lot of considerations for each of these projects, so it can be helpful to have someone with experience to help you go over it all. Personally, when talking to friends about getting an EV, charging considerations are usually the thing that takes up the bulk of the conversation.
So if the toolkits are still too daunting for you, Charge at Home is offering free charging consultations for multifamily developers, owners, property managers and HOAs.
The charging consultations will last through at least April 2026 – but it wouldn’t hurt to get your requests in soon. Forth may still offer consultations afterwards, but it all depends on funding availability (the program was previously funded by the Department of Energy, which has taken a turn). Regardless, the website will remain up for people to submit questions and find information, whether or not free consultations stick around.
But at the very least, as Forth points out, whether a multifamily development is interested in having EV charging at this moment or not, any developer should think about having the infrastructure, conduit and capacity ready to go for future install of EV chargers, and should consider the needs of current residents who are likely already considering EVs today.
It’s going to be necessary to install this capacity at some point, and doing so earlier can help save money down the line, make your development more attractive to renters today, and allow more renters to make the switch to cleaner transportation which helps air quality and to reduce climate change, both of which harm everyone on the planet.
Head on over to Forth’s Charge at Home site to get access to all the above resources – and to sign up for a consultation before the end of April if you’re a multifamily developer, owner, property manager or HOA.
Update: This article has been updated to account for an extension in program availability.
Electrek’s Take
I’ve long said that the only real problem with EVs is the problem of access to consistent charging for people who don’t have their own garage. Whether this be apartment-dwellers, street-parkers or the like, the electric car charging experience is often less-than-ideal outside of single family homes, at least in North America.
There are workarounds available, like charging at work, or using Superchargers in “third places” where you often spend time, but these still aren’t optimal. The best thing is just to charge your car wherever it spends most of its time, which is your home. When you do that, EVs outshine everything in convenience.
We’ve highlighted some projects before which showed how reasonable it can be to install charging for developments. Every project is going to have its complexities, but when you see projects like this condo complex that managed to install chargers for just $405 per parking spot, all of a sudden it becomes a no-brainer not to have EV charging.
But the fact is, there just aren’t enough apartment complexes out there which have EV charging. So if Forth’s Charge At Home program can help residents or landlords with that, it can go a long way towards solving the only real problem with EVs. Click here to check it out.
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Baltimore County, Maryland, just brought its first large-scale ground-mounted solar farm online, and it sits on what used to be the Parkton Landfill. The 213-acre site, once a symbol of waste, is now generating clean power that will cut costs, slash emissions, and turn an underused piece of land into a long-term energy asset.
Located north of Baltimore City, Baltimore County is one of Maryland’s largest and most populous counties, and its push toward renewables has major implications for the state’s climate and energy goals.
County Executive Kathy Klausmeier called the project a clear example of innovation meeting sustainability: “We are cutting costs for taxpayers and making investments that benefit our communities for decades.”
The new solar farm will provide around 11% of the Maryland county government’s annual electricity, producing roughly 8.2 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) in its first year. That’s the equivalent of avoiding greenhouse gas emissions from burning over 620,000 gallons of gasoline, powering more than 1,150 homes for a year, or driving 14 million fewer miles in gas cars, according to the EPA.
The 7 MW system includes four large solar arrays of 15,000 ground-mounted photovoltaic panels. It’s part of a growing trend in the US to repurpose capped landfills for renewable energy, turning dormant properties into productive clean energy sites.
Through a power purchase agreement with TotalEnergies, which owns and operates the system, Baltimore County will lock in reduced electricity rates for 25 years, with options to extend the contract for up to 33 years. That long-term deal protects taxpayers from future electricity price hikes while advancing local climate goals.
“Adding another large source of solar electricity to power our County’s facilities reflects our community’s values of making smart investments that take care of the health of our community and environment,” said Greg Strella, the county’s chief sustainability officer.
TotalEnergies Managing Director Eric Potts called the project a “powerful example of transforming underutilized assets into productive resources,” pointing to the dual benefits of cutting emissions and saving money.
Baltimore County’s next landfill solar project, at Hernwood, is expected to come online by 2028. Once that system is up and running, renewables will supply about 55% of the county government’s electricity use.
Read more: The Trump administration just killed the US’s largest solar project
The 30% federal solar tax credit is ending this year. If you’ve ever considered going solar, now’s the time to act. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.
Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. Get started here.
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