German Nuclear Industry Rejects Calls to Close Plants

The operators of Germany's nuclear 18 power plants insist there is no need to re-open negotiations with the government on the closure of their facilities, according to German daily Der Tagesspiegel.

But some see things differently, including Heide Moser, the health and consumer protection minister for the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein. She has urged Federal Environment Minister Jürgen Trittin to invite the power station operators to join him in a fresh round of talks. "It would be a good idea for the federal environment minister to hold talks on shutting down individual reactors earlier than planned," she told the paper.

Schleswig-Holstein is home to the Brunsbüttel reactor, one of the five the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) wants to see closed down. The other reactors are in the federal states of Baden-Württemberg (Philippsburg 1 and Obrigheim), Bavaria (Isar 1) and Hesse (Biblis 1). The agency says these reactors are older models and have insufficient safeguards against a Sept. 11-style terror attack in which a passenger plane would be crashed into a nuclear plant.

"Better than nothing" but still "inadequate"

The operators said they have agreed a "catalogue of measures" with the government which covered all the relevant security precautions. Environment minister Jürgen Trittin was therefore well aware of their plans to protect nuclear power plants from terror attacks, they said.

The energy spokesperson for the Greens, Michaele Hustedt, said the government's present catalogue of measures was "better than nothing", but still "inadequate." She backed calls for fresh talks between the government and the operators on early closure saying the power produced by the older reactors could be taken from newer reactors instead.

Nuclear power to be phased out in 20 years

The government says there is no need to panic. Horst Kubatschaka, the Social Democrat parliamentarian with special responsibility for nuclear power, criticized the BfS for going public with its findings. "It would have been better if they had spoken to us first," he told Der Tagesspiegel.

Germany is planning to phase out nuclear power over the next 20 years, irrespective of any measures to cope with the threat of terror. Nuclear power is an emotionally-charged topic in Germany: The transport of spent nuclear fuel attracts regular public protest and the Greens' party, the junior partners in Chancellor Schröder' centre-left coalition, grew out of the anti-nuclear protest movement of the 1970s and 80s.