Brussels, 30/05/2011 (Agence Europe) - In the wake of Switzerland, which has just announced that it was phasing out its nuclear power plants by 2034, this weekend Germany set out its plans for closing down its 17 reactors. The medium-term future for nuclear power remains good, however.
The accident at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan on 11 March ultimately convinced the German government to abandon its plans to extend the lives of Germany's nuclear power stations, plans which Chancellor Angela Merkel was backing less than a year ago. The decision by the German government on 29 May to close its last three reactors by 2022 is in line with the timetable adopted in 2000. Once the go-ahead has been given by the Bundestag, Germany will begin the first phase of closing its eight oldest reactors, then, moving to the second phase, it will shut down six others by 2021.
In Switzerland, which, prior to the Fukushima accident, had been planning to build three new power plants, the Federal Council delivered its recommendation to the Swiss parliament on 25 May not to replace the five existing reactors at the end of their operating lives, in order to give up nuclear power by 2034.
A few weeks previously, Italy, which first ended use of nuclear power in 1987, scrapped its plans for a nuclear revival.
While the use of nuclear energy is under debate in Belgium, where an end is planned by 2025, and in Spain, which will close reactors at the end of their operating lives, nuclear energy still has a bright medium-term future in Europe, where six new reactors are being built - two in Bulgaria and two in Slovakia, and one each in Finland and France - and 24 are planned - eight in the United Kingdom, four in Poland, two each in Finland, Lithuania, the Czech Republic and Romania, and one each in France, the Netherlands, Slovakia and Slovenia. Sweden, too, is planning to build new reactors to replace old.
Currently, 14 EU member states produce nuclear power and have, in total, 143 reactors: France (58 reactors), United Kingdom (19) Germany (17), Sweden (10), Spain (8), Belgium (7), Czech Republic (6), Finland, Hungary and Slovakia (4 each), Bulgaria and Romania (2 each), Netherlands and Slovenia (1 each). Outside the EU, Russian has 32 reactors, Ukraine 15 and Armenia one. (E.H./transl.rt)