While new nuclear power plants are being planned in many countries, for example in France and Great Britain, the discussion about nuclear energy is also gaining momentum in Germany.

None of the possible government parties want to reverse the exit, even the FDP has rejected this idea.

Christian Geinitz

Business correspondent in Berlin

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But there are increasing appeals from business and science to think about extending service life: because of rising energy prices, possible supply bottlenecks and the urgency of climate protection. Now a prominent voice has spoken, the former head of the world's largest chemical company, BASF, Jürgen Hambrecht, who was also a member of the “Safe Energy Supply” ethics committee on the nuclear phase-out. "The simultaneous exit from coal and nuclear power is a mistake," he told the FAZ. "Proceeding like this can lead to excessive demands on private households and the economy, endanger Germany's energy security and reduce competitiveness."

When the commission set up by Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) met ten years ago and advocated the end of nuclear power by the end of 2022 for ethical reasons, Hambrecht made it clear that this was done under completely different conditions.

There was no question of withdrawing from the generation of electricity from hard coal and lignite at the same time;

on the contrary, politicians at the time supported the construction of new, modern coal piles.

Promises were not kept

There were still such ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets as there are today, stipulating that Germany should be carbon dioxide neutral by 2045. Germany will phase out nuclear energy by the end of 2022. A recent survey among the operators showed that, from a technical point of view, all six remaining reactors could remain connected to the grid beyond the shutdown dates. A debate about the future of nuclear power has also broken out at EU level.

Hambrecht now complained that there was “no tradeoff between nuclear energy and global warming” in Germany at that time. "That's exactly what we need, though, and it looks like the dangers of climate change are much higher than the risks of nuclear power," he said. "If, for good reasons for climate protection, we switch the economy, traffic and heating to electricity and if we get out of coal, oil and gas at the same time, then we should think again about the possible advantages of nuclear energy," demanded Hambrecht, who today chairs the supervisory board of the machine tool manufacturer Trumpf and looks after start-up companies, including those from the energy industry.

The government had assured the ethics committee that the future energy supply would remain environmentally friendly, safe and affordable even without nuclear power.

At that time it was said that renewable sources would be expanded just as reliably as the power grids.

“All of these promises were not kept, neither the regulations nor the infrastructure is there,” said the seventy-five year old indignantly.

In order to improve the situation, nuclear energy would have to be recognized within the European "taxonomy" as a green energy source and thus as an energy source that is eligible for funding and of interest to investors.

Nuclear power for the production of CO2-neutral fuels

Hambrecht recalled that the electrification of all important energy consumers would require four to six times as much electricity as before. After switching to electrical energy, the chemical industry alone needs almost as much electricity as is currently being used in all of Germany: “Germany can never produce this amount of green electricity Sham solution. "Electricity is already in short supply, during the" dark doldrums "renewable sources cannot deliver reliably, luckily there are still coal and nuclear power plants to compensate for this. Private individuals noticed the misery of rising energy prices, but not yet of bottlenecks: "Perhaps a rethink will set in when there are power outages in cold winters."

The Berlin geoscientist Reinhard Hüttl added that Union Chancellor candidate Armin Laschet had rightly stated that the exit first from nuclear power and then from coal was wrong.

According to Hüttl, the lost capacities are difficult to replace, and Germany is still the largest lignite producer in the world.

In order to achieve climate neutrality quickly, nuclear power may also be needed in Europe and internationally to produce CO2-neutral hydrogen and synthetic fuels.

"It would be a shame if Germany were to say goodbye to the discussion about nuclear energy," said Hüttl.