“Six years to go”

Six years before Germany's last nuclear plant is due to go offline, the utilities’ lawsuits over the legality and costs of the phase-out procedure pose a final but major obstacle for the nuclear exit, writes Michael Bauchmüller in Süddeutsche Zeitung. On Tuesday, Germany’s constitutional court is to decide whether the government's decision to speed up the nuclear phase-out following the 2011 Fukushima disaster stripped the companies off their rights. The ruling could have an effect on how the expected 23.6-billion-euro bill for finding, building and maintaining a final repository for Germany’s nuclear waste will be split between the public and the utilities, Bauchmüller writes. A cross-party commission warned that a prolonged legal dispute could damage companies' restructuring plans. If the utilities abandoned their lawsuit, they would know when to start funding the phase-out, potentially saving millions of euros in interest for delayed payments, Bauchmüller argues. 

Read the article in German here.

For background on the end of nuclear power production in Germany, see the CLEW dossier The challenges of Germany’s nuclear phase-out.

For information on the expected costs for a final repository, see the CLEW factsheet Securing utility payments for the nuclear clean-up.