German court forbids longer running times for older nukes

Good news from the highest administrative court in Germany: The country's two oldest nuclear power stations are not allowed to extend their operation. Anti-nuclear groups are likely to rejoice. This decision makes it even more likely that all nuclear power stations in Germany will stop operation in a bit more than a decade, as in the corresponding law.

The ruling by the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig concerns the power stations at Brunsbüttel, about 90 kilometers from Hamburg at the mouth of the Elbe River, and Biblis A, about 60 kilometers from Frankfurt. Hamburg is Germany's second-largest city with about 1.7 million people, Frankfurt its fourth-largest with 650,000.

Block A in Biblis was the first nuclear power plant in the then West Germany, starting operation in 1961. Brunsbüttel started up in 1976. Both nukes have a history of mishaps, including near-meltdown at Brunsbüttel. Biblis has the dubious reputation of being a "junkyard reactor" because of the frequency of its breakdowns.

The Leipzig judgment, handed down on 26 March, 2009, confirmed those of lower courts and rejected complaints by the power companies operating the plants. The owners wanted to achieve longer running times by transferring the remaining output quota of another station to these two.

There is tension in the fractious coalition government of conservatives and social democrats over a past government's law (the 2000 Phase-out law) to close down all German nuclear power production in about ten years. According to the German Ministry of the Environment (BMU), Biblis A has some 180 operational days to go ('Restlaufzeit').

Because Brunsbüttel is out of operation since an accident in July 2007 the closure, originally planned spring 2009, is now set far beyond the September general elections (actually 2012). Neckarwestheim-I will likely be the next one to be closed and has some 320 operational days left. According to the phase-out law, the last of the 17 nuclear power plants has to shut down in 2022. (See table)

The power industry is lobbying hard to have the law overturned and is backed in this by Chancellor Angela Merkel, a conservative. Nuclear power will be an important issue in the coming national elections late September. On September 5, three weeks before the elections, a nation-wide antinuclear demonstration is planned in Berlin. The demonstration is also to commemorate the 'Tractor-treck' 30 years ago, when farmers from the Wendland-region traveled to Hannover (the capital of Lower Saxony) to protest the plans for a reprocessing plant, a nuclear fuel plant, an interim storage and a final disposal-facility at Gorleben. In Hannover, five days later, 100,000 people joined the farmers in one of the largest anti-nuclear demonstrations in Germany.

Source: Diet Simon / website BMU: http://www.erneuerbare-energien.de/inhalt/43032/4590/

Contact:  BI Umweltschutz Lüchow-Dannenberge.v., Rosenstr. 20, 29439 Lüchow, Germany
Tel: +49 5841 4684
Email: buero@bi-luechow-dannenberg.de
Web: www.bi-luechow-dannenberg.de

Closure dates German nuclear reactors (January 2009)