From our special correspondent in Germany,
Residential suburbs, Lidl stores, car dealerships and miles of national roads lost in the middle of vineyards. Wander in Baden-Württemberg, is to dive into the heart of the typical German countryside. In the center of the “Land” – the equivalent of our regions in France – between Stuttgart and Heilbronn, 11,000 hectares of vines are spread along the Neckar, a tributary of the Rhine. The wine region is the fourth in the country. This is also where the municipality of Neckarwestheim is located, nestled in the hollow of the hills. But more than for its grape varieties, it is for its nuclear power plant that the small town of 3,500 inhabitants concentrates all the attention.
When she leaves her house, Katarina doesn’t even pay attention to the thick white smoke coming from the cooling tower. The 22-year-old student grew up nine kilometers away, in Lauffen am Neckar. With his grandparents, who live Neckarwestheim, she spent hours wandering the surrounding dirt roads, very close to the imposing building. The young woman was 11 years old on May 30, 2011, when Angela Merkel promised the closure of all German nuclear power plants by 2022. “People in the region were very worried about their jobs. The factory employs a lot of people, but it also supports the cafes, restaurants, hotels and businesses in the area,” she recalls.
In exceptional circumstances, exceptional measures
A decade later, the Neckarwestheim power plant is once again the center of attention. But not for the same reasons. To deal with the energy crisis – and the risk of a power shortage this winter – Germany has decided to let the last three remaining nuclear power plants operate until April 15, 2023, i.e. three and a half months longer. An announcement difficult to swallow in a country where part of the population is historically hostile to the atom. In addition to disappointment, Katarina fears a step back: “I grew up with the promise that this plant would close in 2022. Who tells us that the government is not going to reverse its decision and return to nuclear power for good? “.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz has promised, it’s just a reprieve, and the state won’t buy any additional fuel. “In Germany, it is more young people who are opposed to this decision. They believe that it will slow down the energy transition. Among the oldest, we know that we have to adapt,” considers Nicole, who lives in the region. For this 50-year-old, in an exceptional situation, an exceptional measure: “It is not a setback. We have to deal with the current difficulties. The government had to find a temporary solution.”
A solution that Berlin took a long time to find. Because the ruling coalition, made up of the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Liberals, had difficulty in tuning its violins. While he mentioned last summer the extension of only two power stations, the Chancellor finally opted for three in mid-October. A “snub” for the Greens, who have always positioned themselves against nuclear power.
If they agreed to make this concession, it is only because it is temporary: “We did not enter this government to return to nuclear power, but to get out of it”, recalled the Minister of the Environment. , Steffi Lemke, at the party congress in Bonn, mid-October. A compromise that goes badly with Katarina: “We had a chance to get things moving with the arrival of the Greens in government. But in the end, even they seem to give up. SAccording to a survey carried out at the end of June by the ARD78% of Germans said they were in favor of the exploitation of the three reactions until spring 2023, including 61% among supporters of environmentalists.
The impact of this extension, in terms of production, will be very minimal: “The three sites will only produce 5 terawatt hours, or around 1% of the annual electricity production in Germany”, explains Heinz Smital, expert in nuclear at Greenpeace. Hence an extension which, according to him, “is not very useful”.
France singled out
In the region, it is at the university from Heilbronn, about ten kilometers from the plant, that most young people study. That afternoon, about thirty students wait in front of the imposing gray building with the HHN (Hochschule Heilbronn) logo. Katarina smokes one last cigarette, with Rolf, before classes resume. When it comes to pointing the finger at who is responsible, the two friends agree: it is partly because of France that Germany had to extend these power stations.
Here is the equation: Berlin imports its gas mainly from Russia. But with the war in Ukraine, she fears she won’t have enough energy to get through the winter. The country counted on the help of its neighbors, in particular that of Paris, but the state of the French nuclear fleet obliges it to compensate for the shortcomings with its three nuclear power plants. It must be said that of the 56 reactors in France, more than twenty are shut down due to maintenance operations or corrosion problems. The situation is even “worse than expected”, had estimated the German Minister of Economy, the environmentalist Robert Habeck, to justify the choice of his government.nt. And to tackle: “By the past, EDF’s assertions had often turned out to be too positive”.
Going up the steps of the university, Rolf returns to French responsibility. “The goal of the European Union is mutual aid, but France must still fulfill its part of the contract”. Especially since the energy crises could multiply in the years to come, worries the student in engineering school: “What do we do? Do we always help others to the detriment of our country and our commitments? “. This argument is one of those put forward by the German pronuclear association, Nuklearia eV. For its president, Rainer Klute, the situation will remain the same once the deadline has passed. “What will be different next winter, and the one after? The energy and economic crises will not be over in the spring. Nuclear energy can alleviate all these crises in the short term and solve them in the long term,” he believes, pleading to offer a CDI to German power plants.
“Nuclear is always better than coal”
Although he points the finger at France, Rolf is not totally opposed to nuclear power. “It’s still better than coal-fired power stations, much less polluting.” A justification that makes her friend jump. “It doesn’t emit greenhouse gases, but we don’t know what to do with the waste. They will remain radioactive for thousands of years,” Katarina gets carried away. Rolf then comes up with the supreme argument: “Even Greta Thunberg says that nuclear power is always better than coal”. In an interview with the German television channel Das Erste, the young Swedish activist said she preferred nuclear power: “If they are already in operation, I think it would be a mistake to stop them in order to turn to coal”.
So, coal or nuclear? The German government has decided, it will be both. Because Berlin has also decided to extend several coal-fired power stations until spring 2024, even if it has set itself the objective of abandoning this energy from 2030.
“We can’t complain if there is another tragedy”
On the way back, a few kilometers before Neckarwestheim, you have to stop in the Obsthalle Kirchheim car park to get the best view of the nuclear power plant below. Since taking over the family apple and pear farm in 2014, Julia has been anxiously awaiting its closure. After almost fifty years of good and loyal service, it is above all the safety of the installation that worries the horticulturist. “It’s an energy that can be devastating, we saw it with Fukushima. If Angela Merkel made this decision, it was surely not for nothing, ”explains the producer.
And Julia is not the only one to fear a German-style Chernobyl. For several weeks, the German office of Greenpeace has been sounding the alarm. “The extension of the life of nuclear power plants exposes us all to an unjustifiable risk”, was alarmed the executive director of the NGO, Martin Kaiser. An argument brushed aside by Rainer Klute. According to the president of Nuklearia e. V is one of the safest sources of energy: “There was only one major accident with fatal consequences, Chernobyl. It was caused by a type of reactor banned in Europe,” he said. A justification that is not enough to reassure Julia, in the process of installing her fruit crates on the front of the store. : “S‘there’s another drama, we can’t complain’.