Bangkok, March 28: German Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen says the country should shut its nuclear power plants sooner than planned, after the ruling Christian Democrats (CDU) suffered an election defeat.
Roettgen said on Monday that the CDU defeat in the southwestern state of Baden-Wurttemberg shows that the public wants the plants to be scrapped more quickly.
“We have to now show that we can get away from nuclear energy faster and that the switch to renewable energy is possible,” Reuters quoted Roettgen as saying.
Baden-Wurttemberg has historically been a CDU stronghold but on Sunday, the conservative party lost the state elections to the Greens.
Political observers say the public discontent over Chancellor Angela Merkel’s nuclear plans have been the main cause for CDU’s defeat.
Criticism over the German government’s nuclear plans increased after the March 11 earthquake in Japan brought about a massive nuclear crisis.
Roettgen said 80 percent of the public favored switching off nuclear power and replacing it within a decade or so with renewable sources.
Currently, nuclear energy accounts for about 23 percent of Germany’s energy, while 17 percent of the country’s electricity is produced from renewable sources.
Last year, Merkel’s government passed a legislation to extend the lifespan of the country’s 17 nuclear plants by an average of 12 years beyond 2022.
However, after the nuclear crisis in quake-hit Japan, the German government retreated and declared a three-month moratorium on the extensions.
The government also temporarily shut seven nuclear plants built before 1980.
Nevertheless, the initiative failed to placate voters who saw it as an election ploy.
——–Agencies