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The World from Berlin

Germany's Radioactive Election Fever

Two recent mishaps have provided an opportunity for anti-nuclear forces in Germany -- and their flagbearer, Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel -- to take the offensive. But some German commentators think that, in trying to win votes for his party, Gabriel might actually drive them into the arms of the Greens.

German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel is taking advantage of two recent accidents related to the country's nuclear energy industry to press home his -- and most of the country's -- opposition to nuclear energy.

The Krümmel nuclear power plant operated by the Swedish energy giant Vattenfall near Hamburg automatically shut down on July 4 after a fault in a transformer. And, on Tuesday, officials announced that the troubled Asse underground nuclear waste storage facility, a former salt mine, was having renewed problems with major water leakage.

In 2000, the previous coalition government of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Greens agreed to a phase-out program for Germany's 17 nuclear reactors by 2021. These facilities provided 45 percent of Germany's base-load power production in 2007, the most recent figure available from the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology.

According to a recent survey by the Forsa polling institute, almost two-thirds of Germans support the closing of the country's remaining nuclear power plants.

But as Germany strives to meet its long-term commitments to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party has been calling for a delay to the planned shutdown of Germany's eight oldest reactors before 2014. The SPD, the CDU's current coalition partner, opposes such a plan, but it has the support of the business friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP), the CDU's likely coalition party following the upcoming elections on Sept. 27.

According to recent polls, the SPD currently commands only 23 percent of the vote, which is down from the 34.2 percent it won in the 2005 elections.

On Wednesday, Germany's atomic regulator, the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS), released its annual report. Gabriel, who was in attendance, used the presentation event to announce new rules for storing nuclear waste and comment on recent events.

For example, Gabriel called the Asse facility a "complete failure" and "one of the worst examples of irresponsible handling when it comes to the issue of final nuclear waste storage." He also called on German energy giant RWE Power to not put its Biblis B nuclear reactor -- located in Gabriel's electoral district in the central German state of Hesse -- back into operation until additional safety measure have been taken.

The new rules announced for storing nuclear waste stipulate that high-level radioactive waste must be safely stored for a million years, that storage technology must be "continually optimized," that storage facilities have regular safety inspections, and that measures are taken to allow for the removal of waste up until the time that storage facilities are permanently sealed.

Commentators in some of Germany's conservative and business newspapers on Thursday are critical of Gabriel's tone and interpret his actions as being more driven by opportunistic campaign politics than unshakable conviction.

The conservative Die Welt writes:

"Even when Gabriel scandalizes the problems at Asse, he still leaves out important pieces of information. Radioactivity is not demonic in itself; it always depends on the dosage. In order to be able to evaluate the degree of danger, it's important that you have information that the rocks above Asse emit more natural radiation than the storage drums inside. The natural radioactivity of the potassium salt that used to be mined there almost matches that of the material that is stored there now. Water leaks continue to be a scandal, but they are in no way an atomic catastrophe."

"It's very off-putting when the responsible minister constantly depicts a form of energy that delivers almost half of Germany's energy as an eerie menace. And it's a stance that none of our European neighbors (except Austria) would take seriously. Gabriel resists making any subtle differentiations and foments panic. Maybe that's because a bit he's afraid himself -- perhaps less about nuclear power than about the upcoming Sept. 27 elections."

The Handelsblatt business daily writes:

"Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel has been seized with campaign fever. The Social Democrat is cleverly taking advantage of every opportunity he gets to make life hard for the operators of nuclear power plants. The voters that are opposed to nuclear energy are taking note -- but chances are that, to be on the safe side, they will vote for the Greens rather than for the SPD. …"

"Up until now, it has looked like Gabriel has done everything right as an election campaigner. But he's already overdoing things. In the end, his exaggerating will be his undoing. No one can deny that he is strongly opposed to nuclear energy. But the fact is that he is also a pragmatist with the proper amount of understanding for the needs of industry. He knows the worries of the large energy consumers from close up, from his own electoral district. If the SPD were to enter into talks about forming another coalition with the CDU, Gabriel would not block common-sense solutions to energy-policy issues. … In the end, Gabriel's rowdiness is just going to drive voters to the Greens."

The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

"Among the things that Gabriel is demanding is that the security of (nuclear storage facilities) must be guaranteed for a million years. At the same time, he also wants the waste stored there to be monitored for 500 years and he wants it to be possible to remove it, if necessary. If that were the case, though, what we would really only have is temporary storage facilities. If the SPD gets its way, the issue of how to dispose of nuclear waste will remain on the table long after nuclear energy is no longer used in Germany. That plan is not exactly indicative of critical thinking about safety."

-- Josh Ward, 2:00 p.m. CEST