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  Political Meltdown: German Mishaps Put Nuclear Power under Scrutiny

Political Meltdown German Mishaps Put Nuclear Power under Scrutiny

Part 3: Aging, Unmotivated Workforce

Experts believe that the risks posed by plant personnel even outweigh those of an airborne terrorist attack. Employees who have spent years staring at the plants' security monitors without experiencing a major incident are bound to acquire a false sense of security, which ultimately leads to a more lax approach to safety precautions. In 1987 this phenomenon resulted, at the Biblis A nuclear power plant, in what until then was the most serious incident in the history of German nuclear power. For hours the team in the control booth ignored a warning light indicating an open valve in the cooling cycle.

"Working in a nuclear power plant is incredibly boring, but you still have to be completely on the ball," says Michael Sailer of the Darmstadt-based RSC. "Sloppiness is dangerous." Another factor complicating the problem is the aging of workers at nuclear power plants. Operators are having trouble recruiting new employees. Nuclear power plants are "simply no longer sexy," says Jef Vanwildemeersch, a former Belgian government official and now a nuclear industry lobbyist. In the mid-1980s there were about 300 students learning the nuclear power business in Germany. By 2006 that number had plunged to only about 20, half of them coming from abroad.

Insiders also report a lack of motivation among employees. The work ethic has suffered as a result of cost-cutting measures, job cuts and outsourcing. According to Uwe Möller, a lecturer at the Essen Power Plant School, "the mood is somber at a few power plants because many are focused on the time they have left until retirement." Because of personnel shortfalls, some companies are bringing early retirees and pensioners back to work to ensure continued operation. Utilities E.on and RWE say they are already spending "millions" to train new employees internally.

Nevertheless, internal criticism of the industry and its current state remains a taboo. Eberhard Grauf, the former director of the Neckarwestheim II nuclear power plant, was abruptly dismissed in July 2004. Grauf, a professional with an international reputation, had previously complained about "unacceptable work loads" at the plant operated by energy giant EnBW.

Overloading the Transformer

Industry insiders complain that for some time power plant operators have been attempting to squeeze as much profit as possible out of their old, and for the most part depreciated, reactors. In recent years, for example, the owners of the Krümmel nuclear power plant have invested about €50 million in technical improvements to increase the efficiency of the plant's turbines, a move that has brought a 7 percent improvement in net output. But these alleged improvements have also increased stress on secondary systems such as the plant's transformer, systems that were apparently not retrofitted. In fact, this may have been the cause of the Krümmel fire. According to Günther Pikos, a nuclear expert from the western German city of Düren, "the transformer was apparently already damaged by a string of earlier incidents." Pikos believes that this, combined with the increase in turbine output, was what ended up overloading the transformer.

E.on has also asked the Bavarian state government for its approval of a similar efficiency upgrade at its Gundremmingen nuclear power plant. Raimund Kamm of the Forum for a Responsible Energy Policy is concerned about the upgrade: "It's the same situation as when you're upping a car's performance. The engine becomes more powerful, while the brakes stay the same."

Minister of the Environment Gabriel is familiar with these risks. But he is equally alarmed over scenarios that extend into the political arena. He and fellow members of his party are becoming increasingly concerned that the operators of aging nuclear power plants will take advantage of the current mood to attempt to push through a program that could only be to their benefit. By agreeing to shut down trouble-prone reactors prematurely and transfer their operating licenses to newer reactors, companies could extend the operating life of the newer reactors by five to 10 years.

This sort of maneuver would put pressure on politicians, especially Social Democrats. One of them, Gabriel, will soon have a chance to demonstrate how strong his support is for unconditionally abandoning nuclear power. This week he is scheduled to meet with Klaus Rauscher, the head of Vattenfall Europe.

By Matthias Bartsch, Frank Dohmen, Simone Kaiser, Sebastian Knauer, Udo Ludwig, Cordula Meyer, and Roland Nelles

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan