What German Voters Know About Nuclear Power
Germany’s energy policies are among the biggest threats facing Europe’s economy, and if there’s a silver lining it is that German voters are beginning to realize it.
Recent polling suggests a consensus is solidifying in favor of nuclear energy in what has been a nuclear-skeptic country. If only the politicians in Berlin would catch up. [bold, links added]
The main controversy now concerns whether to extend the lives of the country’s three remaining nuclear reactors, which provide about 6% of its electricity but are scheduled to shut down at the end of the year.
Some 78% of respondents support running those power plants at least until summer 2023, according to a survey published on the weekend by Spiegel magazine, and 67% would support running the reactors for another five years.
Polling released last week by Infratest dimap for the ARD television network found similar levels of support.
Some 82% of respondents favor keeping nuclear power, half of those “for a few months” and half for the longer term.
That’s up from 61% who supported extending nuclear power in the firm’s June survey.
Even members of the anti-nuclear Green Party are coming around: 68% of self-identified Green voters supported extending nuclear in the latest survey, up from 38% in June.
One might ask what took Germans so long. Former Chancellor Angela Merkel instigated the nuclear phaseout in 2011 after the Fukushima disaster.
German voters allowed this to proceed with nary a peep of electoral disapproval—never mind that renewables can’t power an industrial economy and reliance on natural gas left Germany vulnerable to Vladimir Putin.
The new German support for nuclear power is all the more remarkable for arising without much political leadership.
Current Chancellor Olaf Scholz is dithering while Economy-and-Climate Minister Robert Habeck of the Green Party hems and haws about whether a nuclear extension would be safe and necessary.
German voters can see the toll of Mr. Putin’s war in Ukraine and the cost of Berlin’s failed 20-year green-energy transition, and they are opening to reality.
The country’s economic prospects—and Europe’s—depend on whether their leaders will follow that example.
h/t Steve B.
Read more at WSJ
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