critical infrastructure
Nuclear power – lifetime extension for Eon still not an issue
The CEO at Eon, Leonhard Birnbaum, no longer wants to hold on to nuclear power, not even in the face of an impending energy crisis. Photo: Henning Kaiser/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
The extension of the service life of the three remaining nuclear power plants, which has recently been repeatedly brought into play by politicians, is still not an issue for the energy company Eon.
The extension of the service life of the three remaining nuclear power plants, which has recently been repeatedly brought into play by politicians, is still not an issue for the energy company Eon.
After a reasonable discussion, the federal government decided that it did not want to come back to this, said Eon CEO Leonhard Birnbaum on Wednesday in Essen. “That settles the matter for us.”
The Eon subsidiary Preussenelektra operates one of the last three German nuclear power plants. They should finally go offline at the end of the year. On Tuesday, NRW Economics Minister Andreas Pinkwart (FDP) spoke out in favor of examining whether it would be possible to continue operating the nuclear power plants until 2029 for reasons of climate protection.
Prepare for next winter
Recently, Baden-Württemberg’s Minister President Winfried Kretschmann (Greens) had not ruled out an extension of the operating times for coal and nuclear power plants in view of the looming energy crisis.
The energy company RWE, which also operates a power plant, made similar statements to Eon on Tuesday. “The option of letting nuclear power plants run longer has been taken off the table by the federal government,” said RWE boss Markus Krebber. “We also consider the hurdles to be too high for a reasonable extended operation of nuclear power plants.”
Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) said at the end of February: “Nuclear power would not help us for the winter of 2022/23.” The preparations for the upcoming shutdowns are so far advanced that the nuclear power plants could continue to be operated “only with the greatest safety concerns and possibly with unsecured fuel supplies”. “And we certainly don’t want that.”