The Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management (BASE) rejects the EU plans for a green label for nuclear power plants as “unsustainable” and warns against putting them into effect.
Berlin – That emerges from an initial analysis that the Federal Office presented this Wednesday and that was available to the German Press Agency in advance. The EU Commission’s approach to classifying nuclear power as a sustainable investment is “incomprehensible” because it ignores “sustainability-related issues”, it says. For example, the danger of nuclear accidents and the difficulties involved in disposing of nuclear waste are given far too little attention, warns the Federal Office, which in Germany is responsible, among other things, for overseeing the search for nuclear waste. The background to the opinion is a classification at EU level, the so-called taxonomy, with which the Commission wants to determine which investments should be considered climate-friendly in the future. To this end, it presented a proposal on December 31st that stipulates that investments in new nuclear power plants can be classified as green if they meet the latest standards and a specific plan for the radioactive waste is in place. Investments in new gas-fired power plants should also be able to be classified as green temporarily, especially at Germany’s request.
BASE boss König warned of the negative effects of the planned nuclear power classification – also for Germany. “From a technical point of view, the classification of nuclear power as a sustainable form of energy generation is not tenable,” said King of the dpa. Atomic energy is “a high-risk technology” that also carries the “risk of the misuse of radioactive material for terrorist and warlike purposes”. EU countries have until January 21st to respond to the Commission’s controversial proposal. It is considered likely that the plans will succeed – since too few countries besides Germany have so far clearly spoken out against the aforementioned classification of nuclear power. (dpa)
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