Nuclear energy wins a reprieve

"Black-and-yellow coalition is radiant,” puns the Tagesspiegel. Germany’s coalition government of Christian Democrats and Liberals agreed on 6 September to keep Germany’s 17 nuclear power plants running for an additional 12 years on average. This overturns their predecessors’ decision to phase them all out by 2022 and extends the deadline to mid-century. In return for this manna, worth somewhere between €50bn and €127bn to the nuclear industry, the latter will have to pay a €1.5bn annuallevy on nuclear fuel (as against €2.3bn p.a. initially demanded), explains the German daily. This policy reversal was one of Angela Merkel’s campaign promises, observes Der Tagesspiegel, but in view of Germans’ hostility to nuclear power, "the chancellor may well have abridged her own political life expectancy”.