Berlin, Dusseldorf In a second stress test, the Ministry of Economic Affairs has the security of the power supply in Germany checked – under more stringent conditions. A first stress test from March to May showed that the supply is secured in the event of a crisis. The re-examination should then form the basis for further decisions.
This brings the question of a longer service life for the remaining three nuclear power plants into focus. The federal government emphasized that nothing had changed in the plan to switch them off at the end of the year. The planned shutdown is not an ideological, but a purely technical measure.
But Union and FDP continue to demand continued operation of the reactors in order to reduce an impending power shortage due to the nuclear phase-out and the gas emergency in winter. The Ministry of Economics under Robert Habeck (Greens) had always ruled that out. Now some questions arise again. Here is an overview of the most important ones:
How important are the three nuclear power plants for the electricity supply?
The installed capacity of the three systems is 4.3 gigawatts (GW). Apart from small breaks due to maintenance work, the systems run almost around the clock from January to December. They represent around six percent of electricity generation in Germany.
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In addition, like coal-fired power plants, they are part of the guaranteed output because, unlike wind turbines and photovoltaic systems, they are available without fluctuations.
Could the nuclear power plants still produce electricity after December 31, 2022?
Yes, that would also be possible without new fuel rods, via so-called stretching. Extended operation would mean that the nuclear power plants would no longer be operated at full capacity from today onwards. They could then produce less electricity in the summer and autumn of 2022, so the fuel elements would be “burned out” more slowly.
“All in all, no more electricity would be produced between now and the end of March 2023.” Approval from the Ministry of Environment and Economics
In return, they could continue to produce electricity beyond December 31, 2022 in the first quarter of 2023. “Overall, no more electricity would be produced between today and the end of March 2023,” says the test report from the Ministry of the Environment and Economics. To what extent a stretching operation would be helpful was checked by politicians shortly after the outbreak of the Ukraine war in March.
An added value, however, would be that there would be additional capacity in the system next winter to contribute to security of supply during peak electricity demand. However, this effect can also be achieved by using coal-fired power plants from reserves.
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The Federal Ministry of Economics (BMWK) and the Federal Ministry for the Environment (BMU) are skeptical about the stretching operation. In a joint note from the two ministries at the beginning of March, it is said that a stretching operation only leads to a shift in electricity production, but not to additional electricity volumes.
Nuclear power operator RWE also emphasizes that stretching operations would also have to contend with high legal hurdles. “It is also not foreseeable to what extent continued operation would also be compatible with the previous requirements of the German security architecture and the test criteria contained therein,” says a spokesman for the company on request.
Would it be necessary to change the law for continued operation beyond December 31, 2022?
Continued operation of the three nuclear power plants that are still in operation would necessarily be linked to an amendment to the Atomic Energy Act, in which the calendar time limit would no longer apply and new amounts of electricity would have to be allocated.
However, an extension of the operating times would only be the continuation of a currently approved and monitored operation, so that the requirements would not be as high as for the new approval of the operation of a power plant that has already been taken off the grid.
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The following applies to the three nuclear power plants that were shut down at the end of last year: Their authorization for power operation has expired. Operation would only be possible due to a legal cancellation of the expiry and a legal extension of the term – high legal hurdles.
Are the power plants still safe enough for a lifetime extension?
Nuclear power plants are normally subjected to a thorough safety check every ten years. However, the last inspection of the three plants that are still in operation was 14 years ago. In view of the switch-off date of 2022, the 2019 safety check was no longer carried out.
Experts assume that security would not be jeopardized if the system continued to operate for just a few months. However, if the systems are to remain connected to the grid for a longer period of time, a thorough and usually lengthy inspection would be essential.
Will sufficient qualified personnel be available beyond December 31, 2022?
The BMWK and the BMU are pessimistic in this respect. “The human resources required for timely continued operation are no longer available and would first have to be built up again,” write the ministries in a joint assessment. This not only applies to the power plants themselves, but also to the supervisory authorities and experts.
However, the industry considers this to be feasible: “Qualified personnel could in principle be made available, since the systems must initially meet all safety requirements as during operating hours, even after they have been switched off in post-operational mode,” says the Association of Nuclear Technology in Germany (KernD).
What lead time is required to procure new fuel rods?
The federal government is assuming twelve to 18 months. If it is very urgent, the delivery can probably be made much faster. The US manufacturer Westinghouse, which is also one of the established suppliers of German nuclear power plant operators, received a request from the German government shortly after the Russian attack on Ukraine began, asking whether fuel rods could be supplied at short notice in order to extend the life of the three nuclear power plants. This is how the online medium The Pioneer reports.
The company said yes and said it would still be able to deliver fuel rods by the end of the year. However, the federal government did not pursue the issue any further. “The time window is now closing quickly, an inquiry would have to be made quickly,” writes Westinghouse. The BMWK and the BMU came to the conclusion in March that the use of new fuel rods “is not to be expected before autumn 2023” even if the order is placed immediately and processing is accelerated.
Which countries do the currently used fuel rods come from?
According to information from the industry, the fuel elements for nuclear power plants in Germany traditionally come from suppliers who operate plants in Germany, France, Great Britain and Sweden. “The uranium contained and the services required for its processing were procured in an international market, including Russia,” says KernD.
The involvement of Russia is not necessary, however, since the uranium can also be procured elsewhere. According to KernD, the services for processing the uranium, such as enrichment, can also be provided in Western Europe.
What costs would an extension of the term cause?
It is difficult to say at the moment and depends above all on how long the reactors are supposed to continue to run (months or years). New fuel rods, the reactivation of personnel, safety checks, operating costs, insurance: the state would probably have to pay for all of this if a political decision was made to extend the service life. So in the end every single citizen. The final storage of nuclear waste is also still unresolved.
More: Economists advocate longer nuclear power plant runtimes