With the turn away from Russian energy sources, the energy emergency in Germany is meanwhile getting worse. In the case of gas supply, the Minister of Economics has already declared an emergency alert. Therefore, gas-fired power plants are to be taken off the grid in order to save resources. Now the Ukrainian Energy Minister Galushenko has offered to supply Ukrainian nuclear power to Germany. By supplying nuclear power, Ukraine wants to honour Germany’s detachment from Russia in terms of energy supply. Galushenko has already presented technical details on the feasibility of this.
Ukraine offers Germany nuclear power to bridge energy crisis
The Ukrainian electricity grid has been coupled with the Association of European Transmission System Operators since March. According to Galuschenko, this coupling can make Ukraine an outsourcer of electricity for Germany. Ukrainian nuclear power could thus be a kind of insurance cushion in times of weather-related declines in generation from solar and wind power plants.
Ukraine uses nuclear power plants for climate protection
In a guest article in Wirtschaftswoche, the energy minister writes “In the area of decarbonisation, Ukraine is moving in a different logic than Germany”. Therefore, Ukraine would also produce more than 50 percent of the electricity it needs in its own nuclear power plants for climate protection reasons.
Image: Ralf1969, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Ukraine already exports surplus electricity to Poland and Moldova
Ukraine operates several old Soviet-design nuclear power plants with a total capacity of more than 14 gigawatts. Of these, however, six reactor units at the Enerhodar nuclear power plant are already controlled by Russian troops. The Enerhodar nuclear power plant is the largest in Europe. Due to the effects of the war, however, the demand for electricity in Ukraine has also fallen sharply. Therefore, Ukraine is already exporting surplus electricity to neighbouring Poland and Moldova.
The German nuclear phase-out is mainly based on the catastrophe in Chernobyl, Ukraine
In Germany, the government is still sticking to the nuclear phase-out that has already been decided. However, the voices calling for a lifetime extension are getting louder and louder. Ultimately, the nuclear phase-out is based precisely on the catastrophe in Chernobyl, Ukraine. It would be downright grotesque if the government were to shut down the safe nuclear power plants in Germany and purchase Ukrainian nuclear power from Soviet reactors.
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