Half of Germany's remaining nuclear power plants are being shut down

Three of Germany's power plants are being turned off before the new year.

As part of the German government's plan to phase out nuclear energy production, nuclear power plants at Brokdorf, Grohnde, and Gundremmingen are being closed on December 31st, 2021. These plants make up half of those remaining in Germany. Their closure will reduce the energy coming from nuclear sources by roughly four gigawatts, equivalent to that produced by a thousand wind turbines.

Following the Fukushima nuclear disaster of 2011, Chancellor Angela Merkel began phasing out nuclear power from the country entirely. With three power plants remaining, the process will be complete with the planned closing of those at Neckarwestheim, Essenbach, and Emsland.

"In the long term, the hope is that an increase in renewable energy will balance things out, but this will not be the case in the short term. This will make Germany more dependent on natural gas overall, at least in the short term, and thus also a little more dependent on Russia," said Sebastian Herold of the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences.

These moves come despite a current energy crisis in Europe, with soaring prices due to a lack of natural gas supply, resulting from geopolitical tensions with Russia, which supplies a third of Europe's natural gas. A surveyed fifty percent of Germans around to reversing the continued nuclear shutdown, partly thanks to the increased energy prices.