Recently named one of 50 people who could save the planet, German Chancellor Angela Merkel may need to be saved herself.
At a meeting last month of two German political parties &mdash the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union &mdash Merkel publicly decried predecessor Gerhard Schroeder’s 1986 resolution to close the country’s 17 nuclear power plants by 2020 as “absolutely wrong.”
Deutsche Welle and Press TV, among other sources, covered this meeting last month.
In reaction to the rising price of fuel and the fact that 25% of German electricity stems from nuclear energy, Merkel said she wanted the country to build more atomic plants, not mothball existing ones.
France, with its acclaimed PUREX process that bathes used nuclear fuel in nitric acid to extract uranium and plutonium (something the United States should, but doesn’t, have in place), is excited to help neighboring Germany.
“The desire of the French is to work with our German friends to produce nuclear energy,” said President Nicolas Sarkozy at a joint press conference.
Fast forward to this week and Merkel defended the German phase-out of nuclear plants at the G8 summit.
She can’t have it both ways, so either the news media I am attributing are incorrectly quoting her or I’m missing something.
Why would she tell her own party that Schroeder was wrong in wanting to close the German nuclear energy program but tell the G8 a reversal?
Jim Connaughton, senior environmental advisor to President George W. Bush, told Der Spiegel that nuclear power plants are a “litmus test for the seriousness on climate change” and that “a country that has the capability to responsibly use nuclear energy, in my view, has a responsibility to do so.”
I’ll write more about U.S. nuclear policy in the coming days, but this statement is clear-cut enough for my layman’s eyes: the U.S. supports nuclear policy and other nations should follow suit.
Sweden, Belgium, the UK, Italy, and Albania are joining the bandwagon, each considering building new nuclear plants.
Why do European Union nations want to revisit nuclear policy?
One reason may be because fossil fuel consumption has peaked.
Norwegian energy consultant Rune Likvern analyzes energy statistics among the EU, the U.S., and Asiatic/Pacific nations in this graph.
With data from British Petroleum’s Statistical Review of World Energy 2008, Likvern suggests the EU may have reached a self-sufficiency peak and nations such as Germany may be tired of importing energy from Russia.
Nuclear policy is undoubtedly a jigsaw puzzle with interlocking countries and people, each with their own dogma, dossiers, and diatribes. Dissecting the mess is not something for the faint of heart.
Merkel, as a politician and former environmental minister, understands the terminology and technology, I presume, much more than Likvern or me. But despite her knowledge and even moreover that she is chancellor, shouldn’t she keep to one platform when talking about that which she ought to know best?
UPDATE: Merkel didn’t speak in favor of nuclear policy at the G8 summit because she felt “isolated,” according to Judy Dempsey of the International Herald Tribune. So, Dempsey agrees Merkel flip-flopped?
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Ari Herzog is an online media strategist and Newburyport City Councilor-Elect.
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