Phaseout confirmed

The German lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, approved the government's historic phaseout of nuclear energy on Thursday, four months after the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan intensified Germans' opposition to nuclear energy.

The governing center-right coalition of the Christian Democratic Union and the Free Democrats convinced the opposition Social Democrats and Greens to vote for the bill, giving it a wide majority of 513 "yes" votes and 79 "no" votes. Eight lawmakers abstained.

Only the Left party voted against the bill, arguing for an even faster timeline.

The bill gradually turns off Germany's nuclear power plants, and immediately shuts down the eight oldest operating plants. The last plant would shut down in 2022.

The timeline is similar to previous legislation passed by Chancellor Angela Merkel's predecessor, Gerhard Schröder, which took effect in 2002. Merkel had passed an extension of Schröder's timeline, but was forced to backtrack after Japan's nuclear disaster turned even more Germans against nuclear energy.

Consensus after decades of division

Germany is the first major industrialized nation to put an end to nuclear power since the Fukushima disaster.

"This is a great day in Germany," said Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen, noting that the plan had been approved by consensus.

The Bundestag also approved stop-gap measures to make up for the 23 percent of energy use that nuclear power provided in Germany last year including new coal and gas power plants, subsidies for making residential building more energy efficient and support for an expansion of wind energy.

According to Claudia Kemfert, an energy expert with the German Institute for Economic Research, Germany wants to increase the renewable energy share of its electricity use from the current 17 percent to 80 percent in the next 40 years.

"The percent which is now produced by nuclear power plants can be replaced by doubling the share of renewable energy in the next 10 years," she told Deutsche Welle. "This is feasible, if the infrastructure and the storage options are improved."

Röttgen said the country would make history with its transition to renewable energies. "They're saying abroad, if any country can do it, it'll be the Germans."

But the Greens and the Social Democrats, who have long fought for an end to nuclear power, weren't ready to let the conservatives take all the credit.

"We've suffered 30 years of abuse, and now you agree with us," said Sigmar Gabriel, the Social Democrats' leader, of the governing coalition's about-face.

The Greens, who had long made a nuclear shutdown one of their primary goals, took out newspaper ads declaring a Green victory. And after years of minority party status, they now have the support of some 25 percent of the electorate, according to surveys.

The shutdown bill is expected to be passed by the upper house, the Bundesrat, on July 8.

Author: Andrew Bowen, Holly Fox (Reuters, dpa)
Editor: Andreas Illmer