“Just somewhere else”

The projected state fund for financing the storage of Germany’s nuclear waste may seem like a gift to the utilities suffering from the Energiewende’s consequences – but it is not, writes Andreas Mihm in a commentary for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “In fact, they will have to pay dearly,” he argues. The 17.4 billion euros in provisions for liabilities, plus a risk premium of 6.2 billion euros, are “a costly emancipation from the state's paternalism”. This has been characterised by constantly changing its approach to nuclear waste management and driving up costs by interrupting the process and making new demands, Mihm says. “The nuclear legacy’s problem has not been resolved, the responsibility just lies somewhere else.”