Germany at a crossroads: what a nuclear power station tells us about its energy dilemma

On a slope above the river Neckar in south-west Germany, about 25 miles (40km) from Stuttgart, stands the village of Neckarwestheim, its red terracotta roofs surrounded by vineyards and farmers’ fields, with streets leading to a central market square.

So far, so typical for a rural community in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. However, this settlement of 4,200 residents has one defining characteristic: it is located right next to one of Germany’s three remaining nuclear power stations.

The challenges facing this picturesque village illustrate how the energy crisis is affecting Europe’s largest economy, as Russia’s weaponisation of the gas supply has complicated Germany’s planned transition away from nuclear.

On a crisp, clear autumn day, clouds of steam rise from the Neckarwestheim nuclear plant’s pressurised water reactor, pale against the hill at whose feet it stands. For those prepared to live with a reactor as a neighbour, its arrival in the mid-70s heralded a golden age. The site’s first reactor stopped producing power in 2011, while the second has been operational since 1989.

“Everyone’s dreams came true,” says Jochen Winkler, the mayor of Neckarwestheim, from his office overlooking the main square of the village, which will celebrate its 900th birthday in 2023.

In more recent times, the village has flourished; its population has doubled over the four decades the power station has been there.

Winkler reels off a list of the amenities enjoyed by residents, from a sports hall and a cultural centre to subsidised childcare and even, once upon a time, “welcome money” paid to the parents of newborns, all thanks to local business taxes collected from the power station. Its owner is EnBW – a majority state-owned and publicly traded energy company, whose name stands for Energy Baden-Württemberg.

“We had an income equivalent to that of communities which are three or four times our size,” says Winkler.

But this is coming to an end, and Neckarwestheim II is living on borrowed time, limiting the local authority’s largesse. Along with Germany’s two other remaining nuclear power stations, it was supposed to be turned off by the end of the year, undergoing the final stage of an 11-year phase-out process initiated by Angela Merkel’s government after the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan.

However, the urgent need to ensure winter energy supply as Russia throttled flows of gas into Europe led the federal government in Berlin to grant a stay of execution. All three operating nuclear reactors – Neckarwestheim, Isar II in neighbouring Bavaria, and Emsland in the north-west close to the Dutch border – are now permitted to run until the middle of April next year.

Neckarwestheim’s contribution to Germany’s electricity is not insignificant: it generated 11bn kWh of electricity in 2021. The reactor provides a sixth of the total electricity consumption in the industry-heavy state – home to significant manufacturing operations including several car plants – or two-thirds of the total electricity demand of the state’s 5m households.

“People who are afraid of or have a problem with nuclear power don’t live here. New citizens who have a problem with it don’t move here,” says Winkler.

That statement certainly holds for Melita Marinkovic, out walking her puppy with her 12-year-old son, who has just moved here from Ludwigsburg, 15 miles south. “If there was a problem with the reactor, they would also be affected in Ludwigsburg,” she says. Like many of her neighbours, she thinks it’s a shame the power plant is being turned off: “It’s a good source of clean energy.”

Residents’ views contrast with prevailing public opinion in Germany, where the existing anti-nuclear movement gained prominence after the 1986 Chornobyl disaster, as fears grew about the risks of nuclear power.

Despite Germany’s temporary extension, opponents and environmental groups continue their demonstrations. Sporting an anti-nuclear badge on his jumper, Frank Wagner, from the mid-Neckar federation of citizens’ action groups, fears the current nuclear extension is just the thin end of the wedge.

“This step shows us that the dam has been breached, which makes it quite easy to say in the coming months, ‘Oh, we’ve still got an energy shortage, we need the nuclear power plants for longer,’” Wagner says. He is also concerned that no location has yet been found for the permanent storage of Germany’s nuclear waste; the discussions are expected to last nearly 30 years.

Dr Andre Baumann, Baden-Württemberg’s undersecretary of state for the environment, climate and energy, insists that the April extension will be the last. The Green politician, whose party returned last year to national government as part of a three-way coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Free Democrats (FDP), is adamant that no new fuel rods will be bought for Neckarwestheim, which would be necessary to keeping it running beyond April.

For some, April is too late. After a previous year’s safety check at the reactor revealed cracks in pressure generator heating pipes, two local people decided to take their complaint to court. Their case will be heard later this month.

The reactor’s owner, EnBW, says the plant has a “very high level of safety, also in international comparisons”. It adds that a previous court ruling found there was no reason to intervene in the operations of the reactor. The state government, with responsibility for nuclear oversight, says it is also satisfied that the plant can run safely.

Apologising for the cool temperature in his office – the environment ministry has set its thermostats to 19C – Baumann says: “We mustn’t forget what’s important. We have to continue saving energy.

“We have to adapt our energy system for the future. That means renewables, renewables, renewables. The setup costs are considerably lower than for new nuclear, coal or gas plants.”

But the Energiewende, or energy transition from fossil fuels to renewables, of which Germany was an early adopter, appears to have stalled in recent years. Many complain that plans to transport more wind power generated in the blustery north to the energy-hungry industrial south hit obstacles as far back as 2014.

While the phase-out of nuclear and fossil fuels has been planned for years, the war has forced national energy policy to swerve in the other direction. Germany is racing to finish five terminals to receive liquid natural gas (LNG), and last week signed a 15-year deal with Qatar to receive new flows of LNG from 2026.

Coal also continues to play a role. A recent lack of wind has prompted Germany to burn more of it, accounting for 45% of all energy generation. This was up from 31% in the first half of 2022, according to official statistics, when almost half (49%) came from renewable sources. Some analysts are concerned that the final shutdown of nuclear, which accounted for 6% of total electricity generation in the first six months of the year, will also leave a gap.

In Neckarwestheim, the authorities have developed two solar installations, but Winkler says the process of obtaining permits for new developments is lengthy and time-consuming.

Dr Gottfried Kazenwadel’s is the fourth generation in his family to farm crops and grow wine nearby. The chair of the local agricultural association is generally in favour of the nuclear switch-off, and like many Germans, would prefer the country to accelerate the development of renewable energy. He jokes that the village’s name was often left off the packaging for local agricultural produce.

“Neckarwestheim was always in the news,” he says, “especially when the second reactor was built, which wasn’t necessarily good for marketing.”