“The Benefits of Germany’s Nuclear Power Phase-Out: Safer, Cheaper and More Sustainable Energy Alternatives”

The German government did the right thing in terms of public support for shutting down the last remaining nuclear power plants. Solar and wind energy are not only significantly cheaper to produce than nuclear energy, but also safer, more sustainable and more climate friendly.

With the closure of its last three nuclear power plants, Germany has completed its phase-out of nuclear power. As the minister responsible for nuclear safety in Germany, I believe that this was an excellent, truly visionary step. There are many justifications for doing so, but I’d like to look at five that I think are particularly significant.

First, going nuclear makes Germany safer. No nuclear power plant in the world is safe enough to completely exclude the possibility of a catastrophic accident. Such an accident can be caused by human error (as in Chornobyl in 1986) or a natural disaster (as in Fukushima in 2011). This could be caused by a terrorist attack, a plane crash, or an undetected vulnerability in our security strategies. Or, in the worst case, it could be caused by a military attack – similar to the ones Russia is currently carrying out in Ukraine