Germany has now finally phased out nuclear power. On April 15, the last three nuclear reactors went offline. It was not until the summer of 2022 that the EU Parliament decided to declare nuclear energy sustainable, which, however, also caused a lot of astonishment and protest. Especially in Germany, where people have long since said goodbye to it. The technology is too expensive and too unsafe, according to experts such as Christoph Pistner from the Ökoinstitut Darmstadt or Claudia Kemfert from the German Institute for Economic Research.
Despite the shutdown of the last nuclear reactors, there are debates about turning nuclear power plants back on. Proponents of nuclear energy cite a possible energy bottleneck in Germany as the reason, which could also arise from a future higher demand for electricity.
Safe nuclear reactors from startups
The government alliance SPD, Gründer and FDP is currently divided on the question of whether nuclear power should remain in Germany or not. In any case, the two startup founders Götz Ruprecht, co-founder of the German-Canadian nuclear startup Dual Fluid, and Franklin Servan Schreiber, also founder and CEO of the Swiss nuclear startup Transmutex, are insisting on a return to nuclear energy. Both develop new types of nuclear reactors, so-called small modular reactors (German: “small modular reactors”).