The switching off of Germany’s last three nuclear power plants by Saturday, April 15 at midnight put an end to the toothless pragmatist debate on extending their use for some time that dominated the scene before. The only hope for Germany now is to have a competent debate on re-entering nuclear power, including the construction of modern power plants, and to accelerate the development of thermonuclear fusion power.
A reality without nuclear power is unacceptable for an industrial nation like Germany. What happened on early Sunday morning April 16 is a clear warning of things to come: to secure power supplies, Germany was forced to import electricity from all European neighbors, with France leading with 2 GW. Wind power supplied only 13% of potential capacity, solar panels even only 1.4%.
And that was on early Sunday morning, when power consumption is low also in private households, most of industry is not active anyway. If it had been a normal working day, it would have been an outright disaster, with government plans for drastic power rationing going into effect.
The “renewables future” the government is still talking about, is not going to come, as shown by the fact that installation of new, unreliable wind power is only one-third of what it should be according to government plans. Investments into wind power are much too low, and wind is an incalculable source anyway—as this early Sunday morning evidenced.
The “era of e-mobility” with millions of announced e-cars has not even begun yet, and it will not come because the power supply does not exist. Possessing an e-car does not make sense if the battery cannot be recharged, quite simply. And power-intensive sectors of industry cannot function this way either. A lot of medium-sized and small companies will not survive, whereas the big industry like the car makers will try to produce outside of Germany, preferably in Asia. Since the automobile sector is the centerpiece of German industrial production, that implies massive job losses in Germany.
If Germany wants to survive as an industrial nation, particularly as a leading one in the world, it has to return to and expand its nuclear power. At the moment, the LaRouche movement’s BüSo party is, as has been the reality before, the only one that has construction of new nuclear power and the rapid development of thermonuclear power on its agenda. It has to find allies among citizens in the fight for that. According to latest polls, between 52 and 59% of citizens disagree with the government’s policy of exiting from nuclear power—which is certain to grow with the power scarcity that will be a constant companion of German developments from now on.
The absurdity of the German situation is additionally illustrated by Finland, which just completed the required test runs of its latest nuclear reactor and is committed to securing one-third of its national power supply from nuclear. And the Greens of Finland, after all a partner in the government coalition, are all for it!
