Germany’s billion-euro nuclear fund weathers crisis relatively unscathed so far

The state-run fund created to pay for the intermediate and final storage of  nuclear power station waste  in Germany has so far coped well throughout the coronavirus crisis, news agency Reuters reports. It shows a minus of 0.3 percent compared to the beginning of the year, fund manager Anja Mikus confirmed this week. This was helped by the fact that it was still holding over 40 percent of its funds in cash. Since it was launched with 24 billion euros three years ago, invested assets have yielded a return of 4.1 percent per annum. Despite the coronavirus pandemic, the fund is expected to generate a profit of 100 to 125 million euros in 2020, Reuters writes.

The initial payments into the state fund were made in 2017 by nuclear power station operators E.ON, Vattenfall and EnBW. According to the “polluter pays” principle, these companies would have been responsible for the decommissioning and storage of the nuclear waste themselves. But amid worries about their financial wellbeing during the energy transition, the government decided it would be safer to secure the money utilities had set aside for the clean-up in the fund.