AfD leader Weidel angers the head of Vattenfall

The new German head of the energy company Vattenfall, Robert Zurawski, sharply criticized AfD leader Alice Weidel for her statements on wind energy at the recent party conference. “I had to keep my emotions in check when I heard Ms. Weidel’s sentence,” Zurawski told the newspapers of the Funke media group.

Weidel said at the party conference in Riesa that he wanted to “tear down all the wind turbines.” “Down with these windmills of shame,” she said. According to the newspapers, she later wanted the statement to be understood exclusively as referring to wind turbines in the Reinhardswald.

“Regardless of the legal question of ownership: in 2024, almost a third of Germany’s total electricity generation came from wind turbines. The AfD would also benefit from taking a look at the facts,” said Vattenfall boss Zurawski. Wind power enjoys a high level of acceptance among the population.

Zurawski was skeptical about restarting nuclear power plants that have been shut down. “Nuclear power plants once taken offline cannot simply be restarted,” he said. The nuclear power question is a social one; in Germany the decision was made by consensus to phase it out.

Vattenfall itself operated the Brunsbüttel and Krümmel nuclear power plants and was involved in the Brokdorf nuclear power plant. Zurawski ruled out recommissioning one of these reactors: “There’s no way they’ll go back on the grid.”