Union calls Habeck's type of nuclear power test "outrageous"

Revelations about predetermined assessments of a nuclear power plant runtime extension by Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck and Federal Environment Minister Steffi Lemke (both Green) cause outrage in the Union. "It is not really surprising that the Minister of Economic Affairs specified the result of his study himself," said the parliamentary manager of the Union faction in the Bundestag, Thorsten Frei (CDU), WELT. "But given the seriousness of the energy crisis, it's downright outrageous."

As WELT AM SONNTAG and the magazine "Cicero" reported, on March 4, shortly after the Russian attack on Ukraine, two state secretaries from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Ministry of the Environment presented a draft argumentation paper that was supposed to justify the refusal to extend the service life. The form and content of this paper, which was already titled “Review”, largely anticipated the “Review Note” with which Habeck and Lemke then publicly announced on March 8 their rejection of an extension of the lifetime of the three remaining nuclear power plants.

But the previous "examination" paper by the state secretaries had already been drafted before the ministries had talks with the operators of the nuclear power plants and before a written statement had been received in their offices from the President of the Federal Network Agency, Klaus Müller, who is responsible for security of energy supply. arrived. Furthermore, Habeck's and Lemke's "test report" of March 8 does not reflect what had already been sent to the ministries: namely a communication from the nuclear power plant operator EnBW of March 2 that the nuclear plants "are at the highest safety level, even in an international comparison ’ and ‘continued operation can take place at this high safety level’. The assessment by two members of the Reactor Safety Commission, according to which an extension of the service life could dampen the price of electricity, was also missing. These factual pro-atom recommendations apparently had no influence on Habeck's and Lemke's "approval report" presented shortly thereafter.

The assertion of the Federal Environment Ministry on its website that there were "no ideological bans on thinking" when examining service life extensions can also be doubted on the basis of the reports insofar as estimates by ministry experts of relatively high CO₂ savings in the event of a service life extension were not taken into account. A weighty expert opinion from the Society for Reactor Safety was also not heard.

Thorsten Frei from the CDU concludes that Minister Habeck "disregarded the advice of the experts". "The ideology seems stronger than any factual argument." But Frei is hoping for next week when the Bundestag votes on the amendment to the Atomic Energy Act, according to which the three remaining reactors Isar 2, Emsland and Neckarwestheim 2 will only run until April 2023 without installing new fuel rods allowed to.

The Emsland nuclear power plant has to be temporarily taken off the grid in winter. This resulted in a request from the Union to the Ministry of Economic Affairs. It must be reconfigured. After that, the output of the power plant would initially be significantly lower.

Then, according to Frei, MPs would have “the opportunity to put up a stop sign against this ideology-driven traffic light policy.” It was "high time to finally strengthen the supply side of the energy supply". In addition to the expansion of renewable energies and more power generation from biomass, this also includes "extending the operating times of our nuclear power plants," said Frei. "For this, new fuel rods must finally be ordered."

However, the Greens, who recently even opposed the short-term extension of the Emsland reactor's operating life in a party conference resolution, Frei's demand for new fuel rods is likely to fall on deaf ears. In the WELT interview, former Federal Environment Minister Jürgen Trittin emphasized how tough the party is on this question: After the winter, Trittin said, there will “certainly be attempts to drive the coalition apart again on this issue. That is why it is necessary to send clear stop signals in good time. ”The coalition partners are meanwhile silent: the FDP and SPD did not want to comment on the WELT request about the reports on Habeck’s and Lemke’s test procedures.

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