Germany’s nuclear exit

– The Bavarian village of Gundremmingen is so proud of its nuclear power station that its coat of arms is graced with a giant golden atom.

But change is coming to the village, with the plant facing imminent closure under Germany’s energy transition policy.

Former village mayor Wolfgang Mayer’s house has direct views of the imposing complex with its two 160m cooling towers – taller than the spires of Cologne Cathedral.

The plant still produces 10 billion kWh of power per year, though parts of it have already been shut down.

The power station will be decommissioned on 31 December this year, along with two other facilities in northern Germany.

By the end of next year, Germany will have achieved its goal of completely phasing out nuclear power, set by Chancellor Angela Merkel on 30 May, 2011, in the wake of the Fukushima disaster.

The plan represented a dramatic change of course by Merkel’s ruling conservatives, who just a few months earlier had agreed to extend the lifespan of Germany’s oldest power stations.

But it was met with widespread public support in a country with a powerful antinuclear movement, fuelled first by fears of a Cold War conflict and then by disasters such as Chernobyl.

In Gundremmingen, however, the decision has been a tough pill to swallow. The nuclear power station has been “as much a part of the village as the church” and it feels as though “something is dying”, said Gerlinde Hutter, owner of a local guest house.

According to Meyer, it will take at least 50 years to remove all radioactive material from the site after the plant has been decommissioned.

The German government is still looking for a long-term storage site for the country’s residual nuclear waste.

Gundremmingen is not the only German village facing big changes as the country strives to implement its energy transition strategy. – AFP