Germany turned off its final three nuclear reactors on Saturday, leaving nuclear power while attempting to wean itself off fossil fuels and handle an energy crisis precipitated by the Ukraine war.
While many Western countries are increasing their investments in nuclear energy to cut emissions, Germany ended its nuclear age early.
It’s “the end of an era,” RWE stated in a statement just after midnight, announcing that the three reactors had been unplugged from the power grid.
Since 2002, Europe’s largest economy has been looking to phase out nuclear power, but German Chancellor Angela Merkel hastened the phase-out in 2011 following the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan.
The decision to leave was widely supported in a country with a strong anti-nuclear movement fueled by lingering worries of a Cold War clash and nuclear disasters such as Chornobyl in Ukraine.
“The risks of nuclear power are ultimately unmanageable,” said Environment Minister Steffi Lemke, who this week made a pilgrimage to the ill-fated Japanese plant ahead of a G7 meeting in the country.
Anti-nuclear demonstrators took to the streets in several German cities to mark the closures.
Greenpeace, at the heart of the anti-nuclear movement, organized a celebratory party at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.
“We are putting an end to a dangerous, unsustainable, and costly technology,” said Green MP Juergen Trittin.
In front of the Brandenburg Gate, activists symbolically slayed a model dinosaur.
