German
Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/20, pp. 1474-1475.
Right
honorable Frau President. Valued colleagues.
The energy
costs in Germany are too high. We know not from where the energy for the coming
winter shall come and international dependencies exist to an extremely
unhealthy, one-sided degree. Thus, after 20 years of the energy transition, may
be summarized the German energy policy. Yet Germany can no longer afford this
experiment. I here forgo assignments of guilt, since the situation in this
regard is much too serious.
You now want,
so as to solve the gas problem, to switch suppliers, which the Ministry will
succeed in doing, but is naturally united with corresponding high costs for the
consumers and the economy in Germany. The examination by two ministries has
yielded that nuclear power in this regard can make no noteworthy contribution
because it cannot be made fit in good time and that the build up of the
renewables and the hydrogen shall bring us through the coming winter. Many
professional organizations and associations contradict this examination and
complain that they were not included in this.
Furthermore,
your ministries concentrate exclusively on the coming winter of 2022-2023. Yet
here a truism: There will also be a winter of 2023-2024, and the energy
security in that winter is exactly as unknown as in the coming one.
Yet let us
now look at your solutions: Build up of the renewables and the hydrogen. In
that regard, some numbers: In the year 2021, last year, the six remaining
German nuclear power plant units in eight of twelve months generated more
electricity than 1.5 million photovoltaic installations altogether in Germany.
The generation of electricity by the six remaining power plant units was
one-third, approximately 33 percent, higher than by all the photovoltaic
installations together, despite the priority storage of energy from the
photovoltaic installations. For the construction of this insufficient output [Minderlesitung] you have required over
20 years, and in this nonsense you have invested tens, if not hundreds, of
billions of euros of electricity consumer and taxpayer money.
Exactly so
unrealistic is your hope in hydrogen. While in regards nuclear power plants, we
speak of real, existing installations which I can visit and walk through, which
I can look at where the fuel comes in, that it works,
Harald Ebner (Greens): Do the solar installations and windmills run on fuel, or what?
with hydrogen
you have nothing. It moves exclusively in the realm of “wish what you will”.
Today you have nothing, you will in eight months have no hydrogen and you will
in the coming winters have no hydrogen.
Here is shown
the contradiction of the BMWK [Economy and Climate] and BMU [Environment]
ministries’ examinations. If it turns exclusively upon the coming winter, then
as shown can the build up of the renewables and the hydrogen contribute nothing
to redeeming the gas or replacing the nuclear power. The nuclear power, according
to the opinion of the professional associations, can very well do that,
Harald Ebner (Greens): What professional associations, then?
if one now
gets to work and makes them fit for that. If however your argumentation is not
about the coming but the future winters, then there is, according to your own
examination, sufficient time to make fit the nuclear power plants which we
still have and order the necessary fuel.
Stephan Brandner (AfD): Bravo!
The motion of
the Alternative [Drucksache 20/1021]
shows here a way to a solution: For one, we concern ourselves with the
legality; since, despite all examinations, it is after the course of this year
forbidden to generate electricity from nuclear power. This passage must go.
Harald Ebner (Greens): Nein, it must remain. It is clear!
For another,
the time has now come in which we need to speak of the country’s secure,
reliable and also affordable energy supply in the coming years and winters. And
yes, this also includes the question of how to deal with the still existing yet
shutdown nuclear power plants, how they can be made fit so they again receive a
permit to operate,
Harald Ebner (Greens): …and continue to produce waste!
so they again
can produce reliable, safe electricity.
The very last thing that we want, quite honestly, is,
Filiz Polat (Greens): We now want
the end of your speech!
when sometime
brings the unadorned energy emergency, to need to take into the network a
nuclear power plant which has no operation permit. It ought never come to that.
For that, it is
necessary to take responsibility, show foresight and introduce the required
course corrections. I here want to demand of Minister Habeck, who unfortunately
is not there, to show this foresight and undertake this responsibility, since
he owes this to our citizens.
Harald Ebner (Greens): And you would prefer to produce radioactive waste for thousands of years!
[trans: tem]
