Despite the energy crisis, Germany maintains its intention to abandon nuclear energy, so on Saturday the last three reactors that are still operating will be closed, as Europe’s largest economy will take another step in its green transition, AFP informs.

On the banks of the Neckar River, not far from Stuttgart (southern Germany), the white steam coming out of the Bade-Wurtemberg nuclear power plant will soon be nothing more than a memory. The same thing will happen further east, at the Isar 2 plant, as well as at Emsland (northern Germany), close to the border with the Netherlands.

While many Western countries depend on nuclear energy, the first European economy has decided to end this chapter, even if the subject remains a controversial one, according to Agerpres.

Germany is putting into practice the decision to abandon nuclear energy adopted in 2002 and accelerated by Angela Merkel in 2011, after the Fukushima disaster. This accident shows that “even in a country that has cutting-edge technology, such as Japan, the risks related to nuclear energy cannot be controlled 100%,” justified the former German chancellor at that time.

However, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could have thrown everything into question. Deprived of Russian natural gas, Germany faced one of the bleakest scenarios, which included the risk of plant shutdowns and lack of heat in the middle of winter.

A few months before the date previously set for the closure of the last three reactors, namely December 31, 2022, the direction of public opinion began to change: “in the context of high energy prices, there were voices that called for the extension of the plant’s operating life,” says Jochen Winkler, the mayor of the Neckarwestheim commune, where the nuclear power plant of the same name is living its last hours.

In this context, the Government led by Olaf Scholz, which also includes the Greens, hostile to nuclear energy, finally decided to extend the operation of the last reactors to secure the energy supply, but only until April 15, 2023.

“Perhaps new discussions would have arisen if the winter had been more difficult, if there had been power outages and a shortage of natural gas. However, we had a winter without too many problems,” thanks to large imports of liquefied natural gas, added Jochen Winkler.

For the mayor of this small town with 4,000 inhabitants, of which over 150 work at the nuclear power plant, the page has already been turned and it is no longer possible to return to the previous situation.

Since 2003, a total of 16 nuclear reactors have been shut down in Germany. The last three reactors provided 6% of the energy produced last year in Germany, while in 1997 the share of nuclear energy in the energy mix was of 30.8%. In parallel, the share of renewables has risen to 46% in 2022, from less than 25% ten years ago.

However, the current rate of expansion of renewable capacities does not satisfy either the Government in Berlin or the defenders of the environment, and without a serious effort Germany risks not meeting its climate objectives. The equation will be further complicated by the target to shut down all coal plants by 2038 and a significant number of these plants in 2030. Coal is still responsible for a third of Germany’s electricity production, with an increase of 8% last year, to compensate for the absence of Russian gas.