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Background Papers

The Atomic Energy Compromise

Late in the night of June 14-15, 2000, the German government and the country's four largest electricity producers announced a compromise agreement on the eventual closing of the 19 nuclear power plants currently operating in Germany. The agreement, the product of a year and half of negotiation, sets general limits on the operating life and total electricity production of nuclear plants, but it also provides for a measure of flexibility in determining precisely how much longer individual plants will be allowed to operate within those general limits. In exchange for the government's promise to allow plants to operate for the maximum period possible under the terms of the compromise, the power industry has pledged not to seek financial damages.

Background

The agreement between the government and the power industry brings to a close a debate that began in earnest with the oil crisis of the early 70s. Germany's first nuclear power plants were built in the 1960s; OPEC's decision to cut petroleum production in 1973 made the case for expanding the use of nuclear power in the eyes of many Germans. Many, but by no means all. In 1975, local activists successfully blocked plans to build a nuclear power plant in Wyhl (Baden-Württemberg). Other nuclear power projects likewise encountered strong local resistance. The highly publicized mishap at the Three Mile Island power plant in Pennsylvania (1979) helped turn local opposition to nuclear energy into a national movement in West Germany, and the Chernobyl disaster (1986) won the anti-nuclear movement many new supporters. In the 1990s, opponents of nuclear energy gave particular attention to concerns about the safety of transporting, storing and disposing of the radioactive waste produced by nuclear power plants.

The Red-Green Coalition and Nuclear Energy

Both partners in Germany's governing coalition have long campaigned on their opposition to nuclear energy. Alliance 90/The Greens traces it origins to the anti-nuclear movement - anti-nuclear power and weapons - of the late 1970s. Shutting down Germany's nuclear power plants, immediately if possible, has stood atop the Greens' agenda since the party's founding in 1980. After the Chernobyl disaster, the Social Democrats, then in the parliamentary opposition, pursued an anti-nuclear line. SPD-governed states did what they could to block the construction or operation of nuclear power plants and waste facilities, and in their national platform the Social Democrats set themselves the goal of phasing out the use of nuclear energy over a ten-year period in the event they won a Bundestag majority.

In the coalition agreement they signed after their victory in the September 1998 Bundestag election, the Social Democrats and Greens committed themselves to laying the regulatory foundations for ending the use of nuclear energy. A more detailed agreement on the policy the coalition would pursue followed in January 1999, whereby the government would seek so far as possible to work with the power industry in drafting the regulations for shutting down nuclear power plants.

The first round of talks between the government and the power industry was held in late January 1999, and it soon became clear that the Atom-Ausstieg, the "atomic phase-out," could not proceed as quickly as many opponents of nuclear energy had been hoping if the government wanted to avoid a court battle with the power industry. The government and power industry set the foundation for a compromise early in their talks: nuclear plants would be allowed to continue operation and the government would not impose regulations that would impede their operation - for example, curtailments on the transport and disposal of radioactive wastes - in exchange for the power industry's agreement not to seek financial damages. Filling in the details of this framework for agreement required months of reportedly difficult negotiation.

The Compromise Agreement

The central point of dispute in the talks between the government and power industry was how the maximum operating life of nuclear plants was to be defined. After much debate within the red-green coalition, the government proposed 30 calendar years as the maximum. The power industry initially pushed for 35 "full capacity" years, which would translate to about 42 calendar years of operation.

In the compromise announced on June 14-15, 2000, the two side settled on a formula for determining how much longer nuclear power plants will be allowed to operate that takes into account both their age and their output. The compromise sets the standard operating life (Regellaufzeit) of nuclear plants at 32 calendar years from the first day of commercial production. It further sets a total production level - a "reference quantity" (Referenzmenge) - for 18 of the 19 plants now in operation of 160.99 tetrawatt hours; this total is based on the average of each plants five most productive years between 1990 and 1999. Power companies will be allowed to use more efficient plants for more than the 32-year standard operating life by shifting production from older plants within the limit of the "reference quantity." Leaving aside this possibility of extending the operating life of more efficient plants, the oldest of the nuclear power plants now in operation will be shut down under the terms of the compromise agreement in late 2002 or early 2003 and the newest in 2021.

The compromise agreement also addresses the issues of safety and waste disposal. Existing safety standards will remain the basis for continued plant operation, and the government has pledged not to impose new safety regulations that would effectively require nuclear power plants to close before reaching the maximum age and output possible under the agreement. Shipment of radioactive power plant waste to reprocessing facilities - suspended in 1998 after discovery that some of the rail containers used had become contaminated by radioactivity - will likely be allowed to begin again this summer. After July 1, 2005, however, shipments will be allowed only to final disposal facilities. As for the long-planned and highly controversial final disposal facility at Gorleben (Lower Saxony), exploratory work in the subterranean salt formations there is to be suspended for between three and ten years while several technical issues are addressed and alternative disposal methods are reviewed.

The text of the agreement between the government and the power industry is available in Germany, along with extensive background materials, on the web sites of the Federal Press Office and the Federal Ministry for the Environment.