Eva Fischer, correspondent in the Handelsblatt office in Brussels, analyzes trends and conflicts, regulatory projects and strategic concepts from the inner workings of the EU. Because anyone who is interested in business needs to know what’s going on in Brussels. You can reach them at [email protected]
(Photo: Klawe Rzeczy, Getty Images)
Perhaps historians will date the turning point in 2019: the year in which Ursula von der Leyen announced that the European Union should be climate neutral by 2050. A dispute arose again that seemed to have long since been overcome: Should we save the climate with atomic energy? And if so: Should there be EU funding for the construction of nuclear power plants and for research in this area?
The two powerful states within the Union have different opinions: France says yes, Germany no.
Only: were the pro and anti nuclear power camps in the EU still balanced in 2019: Specifically, a third of the member states were in favor of nuclear power, a third were against it, and a third had not yet positioned themselves. More and more EU countries are now declaring themselves open to new investments in this area. After all, no CO2 is emitted when generating nuclear power.
In mid-October, ten member states, led by France, published a pro-nuclear declaration. Finland, the Visegrad countries Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, as well as Slovenia and Croatia as well as Romania and Bulgaria were there.
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It will not stop with these countries: the Netherlands are considering building more nuclear power plants. Estonia is planning to build a nuclear power plant for the first time in its history – although the Balts have so far been viewed as skeptical of nuclear power.
So it looks more and more as if France will win the fight bit by bit. A look beyond the EU shows the same trend: the USA, Canada, Great Britain, Japan and South Korea have also set themselves the goal of being climate neutral by 2050. China, Russia and Saudi Arabia want to do that by 2060. In addition to renewable energies, all of these countries rely on nuclear power.
Most want to build more power plants, South Korea wants to delay its nuclear phase-out. And with that, a technological race for the nuclear energy of the future has long since begun. China is working on becoming world market leader in this area too – and is already busy exporting its nuclear energy technology.
Core meltdowns should no longer be possible with new technologies.
(Photo: imago images / Jannis Große)
Indeed, there are many and important arguments against nuclear power. The most serious are the security and garbage problems. According to calculations by the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, statistically speaking, a reactor accident occurs every ten to 20 years. The more nuclear power plants there are in the world, the shorter this period of time becomes. In addition, there is currently no suitable repository for nuclear waste.
Only one is currently being built in Finland – on a remote island. Sweden has found a suitable location, but is still hesitant to start construction. Incidentally, both problems are the reason why nuclear power would not be economically viable without state aid. There is no insurance company that is prepared to fully insure nuclear power plants against reactor accidents.
Getting rid of nuclear waste is a matter for the state – if the energy companies had to pay for it themselves, and if the costs were passed on to consumers, nuclear power would be unaffordable. There is also the question of energy sovereignty: with the “Green Deal” climate package, the European Union actually also wants to become less dependent on Russian fuels.
However, uranium is required for nuclear power – and Russia is one of the main suppliers for this. In addition, CO2 is produced during uranium mining.
But technological developments are in the process of refuting these arguments. In next-generation power plants, core meltdowns should no longer be possible, there should also be less nuclear waste and existing radioactive waste should be energetically recycled. The military misappropriation, also one argument of the opponents of nuclear power, should no longer be possible.
That is all in the future and is no reason to build conventional nuclear power plants instead of wind turbines or solar parks. It does show, however, that a number of countries have once again opted for nuclear power. Germany should follow this debate carefully – and at least deal with the technology of the new kilns. Otherwise the risk of missing a strategically important technological development would be too great.
More: Emmanuel Macron plans to invest billions in nuclear power. In doing so, he creates facts that the next federal government with green participation cannot ignore.