atw 2018-12

atw Vol. 63 (2018) | Issue 11/12 ı November/December
of 8 to 14 years. The decision that was
taken after Fukushima clearly comes
into conflict with this agreement. It
should be acknowledged that in 2011,
Chancellor Angela Merkel skillfully
played on the moods of the German
population and the German media,
taking advantage of this to forge a
coalition with the Social Democrats.
From my point of view, the decision
was practically unsupported by any
facts – that was simply power politics
on Merkel’s part”. According to the
expert, the government should not
have made any sudden movements,
succumbing to antinuclear sentiment
that swept across Western Europe
back then: “The national economy
and the population would have it
easier now if nuclear energy were
used further as planned and the
revenues in this case could be used to
address the implementation of the
“Energiewende”.
It is remarkable that the German
nuclear phase-out is taking place amid
the growing recognition by the international
community of the significance
of nuclear power in combating
climate change. As recently as in early
October, the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) presented
its updated assessment, calling for
rapid, comprehensive and unprecedented
changes in all spheres of the
global community to limit global
warning to 1.5°C. In the 89 mitigation
scenarios considered by the IPCC,
cumulative nuclear generation increases,
on average by around 2.5
times by 2050. The London-based
World Nuclear Association points out
in this regard that the report also says
that “comparative risk assessment
shows health risks are low per unit of
electricity production”, if compared to
other low-carbon sources of energy.
Be it as it may, the fact is that
Germany still has seven NPPs in operation.
All of them shall be shut down
until the end of 2022 – like in the
‘Farewell’ Symphony by Joseph Haydn,
the seven remaining reactors will in
turn be leaving Germany’s podium of
electricity generation. And yet the
story of the nuclear industry in
Germany does not end upon closing of
the last industrial reactor. And the
point here is not only that the country’s
numerous research reactors will continue
their work regardless of the
course of the energy transition. It is
also important that to create not only
a greenfield, but even a brownfield on
an NPP site, simply disconnecting a
power plant from the grid is not
enough. It must be safely dismantled
and the nuclear waste generated over
the years of operation – removed or
safely disposed of. A task that will take
decades to accomplish.
Considering the ever growing
scope of work, it is extremely important
for Germany to maintain an
acceptable level of competence in the
nuclear industry – there should be
sufficient number of profile specialists
and educational institutions providing
for training of those. As paradoxical
and even tragic as it may sound,
decommissioning and dismantling of
NPPs is and will be carried out, among
others, by those who once built them.
In a word, the back-end of the nuclear
fuel cycle is not much of a lifeasserting
field in German realities.
Rainer Klute, head of the non-profit
association Nuklearia, which is engaged
in raising the public acceptance
of nuclear technologies, laments that
there are too few graduates specializing
in nuclear power engineering in
the country today. This does not surprise
him even taking into account the
demand for skills and competencies
that makes it possible to assess job
prospects in this sphere as fairly good.
“Who, being a young man, would
want to get a profession in which one
cannot create anything new that one
could take pride in and instead has to
be engaged in shutting down and dismantling
well-functioning facilities?
Does this seem like an attractive life
goal?” Klute asks rhetorically.
It cannot be ruled out that this is
one of the reasons why it is not only
domestic companies that participate in
NPP decommissioning projects in the
country – foreign energy companies
appear quite willing to provide their
services. One such example is Nukem
Technologies, which specializes in
radioactive waste (RW) and spent
nuclear fuel (SNF) management – in
2009, the engineering company with
its head office located in Alzenau was
acquired by a subsidiary of the Russian
state corporation Rosatom. In its technological
segment, Nukem Technologies
takes leading positions in the European
market: the company's project portfolio
includes, inter alia, the SNF
storage facility at Ignalina NPP in
Lithuania, a similar facility for the
decommissioned units 1 to 4 at
Kozloduy NPP in Bulgaria; in Germany,
Nukem is engaged in the decommissioning
of Philippsburg NPP.
In a consortium with the German
company Entsorgungswerk für Nuklearanlagen
(EWN), Nukem Technologies
participates in the works that are
currently underway at Biblis NPP – in
June 2017, the company was awarded
a corresponding bid. The plant was
shut down in 2011 among other facilities
that fell under the government’s
decision to immediately close eight
reactors in the wake of the Fukushima
accident. In 2017, decommissioning of
both units at Biblis NPP was completed,
followed by the start of dismantling
works. According to the
plant’s director Horst Kemmeter, this
process should take no less than 15
years. As of today, all nuclear fuel has
already been extracted from both
reactors – the last containers left the
NPP site this September, Kemmeter
said at a regular dialogue forum held
as part of the ‘Biblis transparent’
initiative. As for the role of the Nukem
and EWN consortium, the companies
will be responsible for dismantling
and disassembling four steam generators
per unit, the works launched in
October.
Active engagement of foreign
energy companies in back-end projects
in Germany is backed up by a
thesis that phasing out German
nuclear facilities can be accomplished
in the most safe and smooth manner if
one combines German and international
know-how, especially when it
comes to companies that are actively
developing the nuclear industry in
their own countries. Professor Thomas
Walter Tromm, head and spokesperson
of the Nuclear Waste Management,
Safety and Radiation Research
Programme (NUSAFE) at the Karlsruhe
Institute of Technology Energy Center,
notes: “I would point out that if we
consider foreign participation, we are
still dealing with companies that have
branches or offices in Germany”. As
regards the specific project at Biblis
NPP, in which Nukem participates
together with EWN, it should be
stressed that EWN is a 100% state
enterprise, that is, domestic knowhow
is in place here as well, the expert
says.
Given the array of work to be performed
as part of decommissioning
Germany’s NPPs, specialists will be
sure to have things to do for several
decades to come. The demand for
expertise in this area is therefore high,
creating, in turn, the need for measures
to maintain the necessary level of
expertise in the country in the midand
long term. “At the same time, it is
important to maintain competencies
not only among scientists, but also
among engineers who deal with
decommissioning in practice – this is
to be ensured, in particular, through
the dual education system (a form of
ENERGY POLICY, ECONOMY AND LAW 579
Energy Policy, Economy and Law
Talks of an End to Germany’s Nuclear Industry Premature ı Roman Martinek