The nuclear era ends in Germany on Saturday – the highly radioactive waste remains

He would like to add one more thing, says Stefan Scheibenzuber, the mayor of Wörth an der Isar. “We will miss the cloud,” he jokes.

From his office in the town hall it takes less than five minutes to one of the last three nuclear power plants in Germany, the Isar 2 reactor, which will be shut down on Saturday – such as the plants in Neckarwestheim near Stuttgart and Lingen on the Dutch border.

But there is also a little bit of truth in Scheibenzuber’s joke, he adds. Because here, in the Lower Bavarian countryside, near Landshut, about an hour’s drive from Munich, there is an ambivalent relationship with the nearby power plant, as Scheibenzuber says.

The factory was put into operation in 1979. “I have never felt unsafe,” the mayor said in an interview with T-Online. Still, he thinks it’s right that Isar 2 will soon be a thing of the past, at least in principle.

But why is nuclear energy already over? He can’t quite understand that. “I don’t understand why you don’t play it safe,” he says. After all, they are now in an energy crisis and a blackout in the coming months cannot be completely ruled out.

What do you think of the end of the power plant itself in the nuclear power plant and what has happened in the past days and hours of work here? This is now closed to the public. Operator Preussen Elektra did not respond to a request from t-online, saying the work associated with the closure at the beginning of April was too complex. There is no more time for conversations. Reporters from the “Tagesschau” had been given permission to visit the facility six weeks ago.

“On April 15, a long and complex process will start here in the control room,” the report said. It all ends with a button that says “ReSA”, “Reactor Scramble”. Well, that’s where it all ends, isn’t quite true.

Even if Isar 2 goes offline, the lights are far from going out here. Dismantling the system will take many years and the metal and concrete used can then be used to construct roads and buildings, says Preussen-Elektra boss Guido Knott of the “Bild”.

It is not the first time that the exchange has gone offline. Once a year, the operator shut down Isar 2 for inspection. Even then, the cloud of pure water vapor disappeared above the cooling tower of the power plant, which the disk tubes will miss so much. Because from mid-April she will not come back.

In the Bavarian capital, however, posters point to the end of nuclear energy in Germany. “Finally switch off” is written on the signs with which Greenpeace announces the nuclear phase-out festival in the city. Bernd Schreyer, he sits for the Greens in the state parliament, is on vacation and therefore misses the party. Still, he will be happy, the Munich resident told T-Online.

“Nuclear energy is dangerous,” says Schreyer. He has campaigned against nuclear energy since the 1980s and remembers the deadly reactor accidents at Fukushima and Chernobyl well. He knows people, for example from the Berchtesgadener Land, who have fallen ill or died as a result of radioactive radiation.

After the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, several Bavarian regions were affected by the fallout from the reactor disaster, radioactive rain fell here shortly after the accident.

That Germany is finally saying goodbye to technology “is nice after a long struggle,” says Schreyer. Actually, this should have happened three months ago. But because of the energy crisis, the federal government extended the deadlines by another three months.

“I took it easy,” says Schreyer, whose Green party colleagues were ultimately responsible for the decision. “If you wait that long, three months shouldn’t matter.” A year ago, in an interview with T-Online, he said that if necessary given the imminent power outage, the power station could remain connected, but for a year at the most.

However, he wouldn’t have been happy about it. He can live with the fact that it was only three months. And he is convinced that the nuclear power plant would no longer have been necessary. The alternatives he advocates: hydrogen, which can be used to supply industry. Solar power that already “goes like a turbocharger”, as Schreyer puts it: “Hardly anyone builds a house without installations on the roof anymore.”

And wind energy, whose detractors even exaggerate species protection, as he says – when they say, for example, that the wind turbines are a problem for birds. He believes that polemics against renewable energy sources are made unjustified time and time again. As a result, 100,000 jobs were lost in Germany – and they migrated to China.

About 450 people work at the Isar 2 nuclear power plant near Landshut. The mayor of Wörth, disc zuber, is not concerned about the jobs of the people in his town.

The operator Preussen Elektra also says that those who do not retire after the end of the system will continue to be employed by the company during decommissioning or elsewhere.

There has always been “a good working relationship in the region” with activists like Schreyer, says Scheibenzuber. The demonstrations on Monday, in which opponents made their point known, were manageable. However, Schreyer credits the move with preventing significantly more facilities. He demonstrated at the power plants in Brokdorf, Kalkar and Wackersdorf, some of which were never commissioned.

The principles of federal politics also become apparent in local politics when you look at Isar 2. The Green Schreyer, who is happy with the end. Or the CSU politician Josef Klaus, mayor of Niederaichbach, who is even closer to the factory than Wörth. Klaus’ party leader Markus Söder described the nuclear exit as a “green blind flight”. The head of the town hall will not be that drastic. He would have been happy with an extension of the deadline.

He and many of the “location mayors” see it that way, he says. This is an association of the mayors of the municipalities where a nuclear reactor is or has been. What moves them now: the lack of trade taxes, which once brought some prosperity to many nuclear communities. The energy supply, whose cards are now reshuffled without nuclear energy. And the search for a repository, which is far from over.

And as long as no storage facility has been found for the nuclear waste, it remains in many small temporary storage sites in the country, for example at Isar 2. There is therefore still plenty to do for the municipalities around nuclear power plants such as Isar 2. Even if electricity production is stopped.

At the end, Klaus will visit the team at the power plant again and thank them for the “excellent work” over the past few years, he explains. And then, he says, “an era comes to an end” on Saturday. In any case, rain is predicted. At least a few clouds remain for the people of Isar.

(t-online/dsc)