German minister eyes nuclear power rethink: paper
Sun Dec 11, 2005 11:01 PM GMT173
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BERLIN (Reuters) - Nuclear power should play a role in electricity
production in Germany in the future, Economy Minister Michael Glos said
in a newspaper interview on Sunday, calling for a rethink of plans to
close the country's reactors.
"We need a broad energy mix to guarantee supplies at low prices," Glos
was quoted as saying in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
"It doesn't make any sense for us to buy electricity produced by nuclear
power from our neighbors but to totally turn our backs on it ourselves."
Germany's conservatives and Social Democrats (SPD) agreed to disagree on
the merits of nuclear power in their coalition government deal struck
last month. Glos is a member of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the
sister party of the Christian Democrats (CDU).
The coalition contract said there would be no changes to a decision
taken by the former Social Democrat-Greens government in 2000 to phase
out nuclear power gradually.
Two nuclear reactors have already been closed. The remaining 17, owned
by utilities RWE AG, E.ON AG and EnBW, are due to shut over the next 15
years. The next due to close, according to the environment ministry, is
RWE's 1.225 megawatt "Biblis A" reactor, in 932 days.
Glos said he hoped for a rethink. "We should not turn our backs on a
technology of the future...But I hope that the last word has not been
spoken. The tussle between coalition partners who work well together
over what makes economic sense never ends."
© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.
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