After renewed calls from the FDP and AfD for further use of nuclear energy, Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared the debate over. “Nuclear power is over. It is no longer used in Germany,” said the SPD politician on Friday evening on Deutschlandfunk, referring to the legal decisions. “The issue of nuclear power is a dead horse in Germany.” With the end of use, the dismantling of the remaining nuclear reactors began. If you wanted to build new nuclear power plants, “you would need 15 years and would have to spend 15 to 20 billion euros per unit,” said Scholz.
The FDP parliamentary group had previously called for the option of using nuclear energy to be kept open. “We need power plants capable of base load and therefore want to stop the dismantling of nuclear power plants that are still operational. This is the only way we can remain capable of acting in every situation,” says a resolution that the liberals made on Friday at their meeting in Dresden. It also advocates the “entry into modern, particularly low-waste and low-risk nuclear fission technologies”. The AfD even calls for the construction of new kilns.
FDP parliamentary group leader Christian Dürr said at the end of the exam in Dresden that it was “important that we keep all options open” when it comes to energy policy. The electricity supply must be expanded in order to come down with the prices. Of course, there is no majority in the Bundestag for new nuclear power plants. “But starting with the dismantling right now in such a phase, when we have tense electricity prices, that would certainly be wrong.”