Bavaria’s Minister President Söder criticizes Economics Minister Habeck’s decision to leave two nuclear power plants on the grid as a reserve. It is wrong, not comprehensible and cannot be implemented in practice, says the CSU leader in the ARD talk show “Maischberger”.
Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder has again spoken out in favor of extending the operating lives of the three nuclear power plants still on the grid. He said that one could now see that “making people dependent” on Russia was not really working. Germans were now paying more than before, he said. “Putin is really making fun of us by collecting more money but firing the gas, which is actually intended for Germany, into the atmosphere – a real mockery toward us.” In this crisis, he said, one has to ask oneself whether one can really risk giving up electricity for ten million households.
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The decision by Economics Minister Robert Habeck to leave only two nuclear power plants running as a reserve from January 2023 was “wrong, incomprehensible and impossible to implement in practice,” the CSU politician said on the ARD program “Maischberger” on Wednesday evening. He added that European partners had also asked the German government to leave the nuclear power plants online.
Habeck had based his decision on an electricity stress test, which was intended to check whether the power grid in all German regions could collapse in the event of a harsh winter and a gas shortage. The stress test had concluded that the two nuclear power plants in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg could make a difference to grid stability in southern Germany, but only until April 2023. The two power plants at Isar 2 and Neckarwestheim are now to be left in reserve until that time. This is what the experts in the Ministry of Economics and the grid operators had agreed on.
“Must move to other forms of energy”
In the meantime, however, the operator of the Isar 2 nuclear power plant, Preußen Elektra, has written to Habeck. In it, the EON subsidiary says a deployment reserve is not technically possible. Habeck expressed his irritation on Wednesday. He said that the decision as to whether the two nuclear power plants would additionally be needed would only have to be made once, and that this had obviously passed the responsible technicians by. On Monday evening, however, Habeck had stated during the presentation of the concept that the power plants should be started up again in the event of a power shortage. There was no talk of a one-off decision. A discussion is now expected to bring a solution.
On Maischberger, Söder continued to speak out in favor of a limited operating time for the nuclear power plants still on the grid. “I share the view that this cannot go on forever. I also share the view that we then have to move to other forms of energy,” the politician said. The discussion, he said, is about weighing the risks. “The risk now, after all, is that the grid collapses, that there are blackouts, and that we increase a now veritable electricity problem in addition to a heat problem.” By comparison, extending the operation of power plants that have been running successfully and safely for years is less risky, Bavaria’s premier said.
If Söder were chancellor now, “I would extend nuclear power,” he explained. In addition, LNG terminals would have to be built more quickly and hydrogen networks to the south would have to be planned. At the same time, Söder spoke out in favor of a reduction in the value-added tax and a rescue umbrella for small and medium-sized businesses. On Tuesday evening in the same broadcast, Economics Minister Habeck had also tried to bring such a rescue umbrella into the conversation.
