Germany Dumps Nuclear

Angela Merkel - German PM

Okay, I know it's been a week since the Germans announced they were going to axe nuclear by 2022, but I thought it deserved a second look.

As you may know, I'm pro-nuclear, so you might expect me to say they've got it wrong. But, no.

Sure, I think it's a bit weird for a country that is in no danger of tsunamis and has relatively small earthquakes, to have reacted this way to the Fukushima disaster. And yes, I think Germans have been unduly influenced by the prejudices of the Greens. But, Angela Merkel was listening to the people, and that's usually a good thing for politicians to be doing.

In fact, it was a pretty epic decision as, up to that point, the German government were fully committed to nuclear. They had even over-turned the previous goverment's decision to scrap all nuclear plants by 2021.

So what now for Germany? Well, they've made a pretty big commitment here: Nuclear power currently provides about a quarter of German electricity. That's a huge short-fall to make up. Especially as they've decided to do it using renewables. It looks like the plan is to cut energy consumption by 10% and make up most of the rest from wind power.

That's still a big ask. It will require major changes. But I believe the Germans are up to it. After all, they handled re-unification. Replacing nuclear power should be easy by comparison.