Podcast
Former BASF chairman Jürgen Hambrecht, who helped negotiate the nuclear phase-out in 2011, now says: Germany can only make the full switch to renewable energies with nuclear energy – and can save millions in CO2.
Jürgen Hambrecht has gone through a process of thinking, or better: a process of rethinking. In 2011, shortly after the Fukushima disaster, the then BASF boss sat on the ethics committee that negotiated the faster phase-out of nuclear energy by 2022. Now he is calling for the nuclear power plants to run for a few more years. “The existing nuclear power plants are there, they have been written off. So the electricity is relatively cheap”said Hambrecht. “For our national economy, for the competitiveness of the German economy, it would make sense to continue operating these nuclear power plants.”
During the energy transition, Germany was primarily concerned with nuclear energy. “Ten years later we have completely different images in mind”Said Hambrecht, who was BASF boss from 2003 to 2011 and sat on the supervisory board from 2014, which he chaired until 2020. “Nuclear energy tends to be localized in its risk, while climate change is global.”
He admitted that it was difficult to get political majorities for it. But the legislature has options. “Paragraph 7 of the Atomic Energy Act would have to be modified as an interim solution until we can guarantee a secure supply with renewable energies”, so Hambrecht “We could shut down the dirtiest coal-fired power plants at the same time, saving about 70 million tons of CO2. That is around 10 percent of our total CO2 emissions.”
Controversial claim
In the business world, the voices had recently become louder after an extension of the running times. A few days ago, Steve Angel, the head of the Linde Group, and his designated successor Sanjiv Lamba spoke out in favor of it. “We’re going to need an energy mix. This also includes nuclear power”said Lamba. However, the German electricity companies reacted with reserve to the debate. Eon boss Leonhard Birnbaum described them to the “Handelsblatt” as “strange”: “It comes much too late and is no longer useful.” This is also the case for RWE “Chapter nuclear energy” a long time ago “closed”.
Hambrecht criticized the energy transition “credible, real concept that allows us to make this transformation really successful”. “We are constantly setting new, increasingly ambitious goals. We don’t take care of tracking the implementation”he criticized.
Private households would feel this price increase painfully, as would German industry: “If we get out of fossil fuels, the whole industry will be electrified throughout”says Hambrecht. That means a four to five times higher demand for electricity. There is no concept for this. But you have to “the bloodstream of the German economy” obtain.
Listen in
- What role climate protection played during Hambrecht’s time at BASF
- Why BASF is now planning its own wind farm
- How the debates in the Ethics Council went in 2011 – and which recommendation was forgotten
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Source From: Stern
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
