Germany has shut down three of its last six nuclear power plants, Reuters said

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany has cut three of its last six nuclear power plants to complete the withdrawal from nuclear power while focusing on renewables.

The government decided in 2011 to dismantle the Fukushima reactor in Japan in 2011 when an earthquake and tsunami destroyed the coastal power plant, which in 1986 was the worst nuclear disaster in the world since Chernobyl.

The Brokdorf, Grohnde and Gundremmingen C reactors, run by E.ON and RWE utilities, were shut down on Friday night after three and a half decades of operation.

The last three nuclear power plants – Isar 2, Emsland and Neckarwestheim II – will be shut down by the end of 2022.

Preussen Elektra, which runs the Brokdorf and Grohnde plants, said in a statement on Saturday that they had both closed shortly before midnight on Friday. RWE said the Gundremming C plant also stopped the generation on Friday evening.

PreussenElectra’s CEO Guido Knott thanked the staff for their commitment to security: “We have made a decisive contribution to Germany’s decades of achieving a secure, climate-friendly and reliable electricity supply.”

The removal of energy that some consider clean and cheap is an irreversible step for Europe’s largest economy, despite ambitious climate targets and rising electricity prices.

Six nuclear power plants accounted for about 12% of Germany’s electricity production in 2021, according to preliminary data. The share of renewable energy was almost 41%, coal 28% and gas about 15%.

Germany aims to meet 80% of renewable energy by 2030 by expanding its wind and solar energy infrastructure.

The Japanese government announced plans to dump Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea on Tuesday, angering nearby China and South Korea.

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