Energy crisis: Ukraine offers nuclear power to Germany – Foreign Policy

let’s wait nuclear phase-out Strongly – and finally want to resort to nuclear power from abroad?

Maybe! Ukraine’s Energy Minister Herman Halushenko has offered to supply nuclear power to Germany.

“In the field of decarbonization” (Abandoning the Use of Carbonaceous Energy Carriers, ed.) Ukraine follows a different logic than Germany,” Halshchenko wrote in a recent guest article. “business Week”, Therefore, more than 50 percent of Ukraine’s electricity is generated at nuclear power plants.

“This means that Ukraine, which has synchronized its energy network with the Union of European Transmission System Operators since March 16, could become an outsourcer of electricity to Germany,” the minister said.

Minister: Can “support in the great work”

This creates “a kind of insurance cushion in times of weather-related dwindling generation from solar and wind power plants”. Another advantage of Ukraine is the one-hour time difference to Berlin, which means that the peaks of power consumption are different.

Moving away from Russian energy is “a great challenge” for Germany and is becoming “more and more urgent”, the minister wrote in “Wertschaftswoche”. “But Ukraine can support Germany in this difficult task.”

Nuclear power plants of Soviet design with a total capacity of more than 14 GW operate in Ukraine. However, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Enerhodar near Zaporizhia has six units under Russian control since March.

With the Russian invasion four months earlier, the fight, flight movement and economic downturn also resulted in a sharp drop in electricity consumption. Kyiv is currently exporting electricity to Poland and Moldova.

Political Zoff in Germany

In Germany, meanwhile, controversy has raged over the possible continued operation of three nuclear power plants that are still connected to the grid.

In addition to CDU leader Friedrich Merz (66) and CSU leader Markus Söder (55), Finance Minister Christian Lindner (43, FDP) also brought the longer nuclear power plant runtime into play and called for an “open debate” about it. did. In an emergency, it’s about “physically securing our energy supply anytime and anywhere,” Lindner says.

But his coalition partners have repeatedly softened their mind. A spokesman for the Ministry of Economic Affairs cited the assessment of Robert Habeck (52, Greens), according to which continuing to operate power plants beyond the phasing out date of December 31, 2022 would also be irresponsible for security reasons.

Most Germans also call for continued operation of nuclear power plants. one in ARD. survey commissioned by On Thursday, 61 per cent of the participants supported the extension of the term.