Germany to shut down all its nuclear plants by 2022

PanARMENIAN.Net - Germany on Monday, May 30, announced plans to become the first major industrialized power to shut down all its nuclear plants in the wake of the disaster in Japan, with a phase-out due to be wrapped up by 2022.

According to AFP, Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen announced the decision by the centre-right coalition, which was prompted by the crisis at Japan's Fukushima plant, in the early hours of Monday morning, describing it as "irreversible".

"After long consultations, there is now an agreement by the coalition to end nuclear energy," he told reporters after seven hours of negotiations into the small hours at Chancellor Angela Merkel's offices. "This decision is consistent, decisive and clear."

Germany has 17 nuclear reactors on its territory, eight of which are currently off the electricity grid. 7 of those offline are the country's oldest nuclear reactors, which the federal government shut down for three months pending a safety probe after the Japanese atomic emergency at Fukushima that began in March. The eighth is the Kruemmel plant, in northern Germany, which has been mothballed for years because of technical problems.

Monday's decision made Germany the first major industrial power to announce plans to give up atomic energy entirely. But it also means that the country will have to find the 22 percent of its electricity needs currently covered by nuclear reactors from another source.

Roettgen said Monday that none of the eight reactors offline would be reactivated. Six further reactors would be shut down by the end of 2021 and the three most modern would cease operation by the end of 2022.

Monday's decision is effectively a return to the timetable set by the previous Social Democrat-Green coalition government a decade ago.