In an interview with Bild, the American Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz mercilessly reckons with the German energy transition. He considers the simultaneous German coal and nuclear phase-out a stupid idea. This is not the first time that German energy policy has been called stupid abroad. The Wall Street Journal already published an article on this more than a year ago entitled “The World’s Dumbest Energy Policy“.
Simultaneous German coal and nuclear phase-out is a stupid idea
Stiglitz said about the nuclear phase-out and the current energy supply situation: “I am not a great friend of nuclear power. But in view of the price explosions, Germany should operate its nuclear power plants longer.” Joseph E. Stiglitz is not just anyone. The US economist is a professor at Columbia University and was chief economist at the World Bank. In 2001, he received the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on the relationship between information and markets, together with George A. Akerlof and Michael Spence. The economist recommends that German politicians at least keep the three remaining nuclear power plants running longer, despite the massive expansion of solar and wind power.
Image: Axel Hindemith, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Housing association calls for term extension to reduce costs
The voices calling for an extension of the operating lives of the last nuclear power plants are getting louder and louder. In view of the exploding ones, the Association of North German Housing Companies (VNW) is also calling for nuclear energy and coal to continue to be used. According to VNW Director Andreas Breitner, the government must ensure affordable electricity prices. “We are facing a wave of price increases, the extent of which the vast majority of people are not yet aware of,” Breitner said in this regard. In his opinion, self-imposed bans such as those on fracking, the use of nuclear power and coal are artificially worsening the situation. Therefore, prohibitions on thinking must be lifted as quickly as possible and solutions open to technology must be sought.
Rethinking by CDU and FDP has begun
In the meantime, a dispute over the direction of the energy supply is also brewing in the government of the traffic light coalition. The CDU/CSU and FDP have taken up the issue and also want longer operating times for nuclear power plants. CDU leader Friedrich Merz sees Germany’s energy supply at risk. At the Economic Day of the CDU’s Economic Council, he said: “We have spent too much time on getting out and shutting down. It must make you think that no country in the world has wanted to follow us on this path for ten years.
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