Expert Commission – Shared responsibility for the nuclear phase – Frankfurter Rundschau

February 22, 2016

nuclear protesters block the entrance to the nuclear power plant Neckarwestheim. (Archives) Photo: imago stock & amp; people

The Commission for the financing of the nuclear phase presented a financing model for the settlement of the nuclear sector. Half of the provisions of Eon & amp; Co. is to flow into a state fund for nuclear waste disposal. The power companies to withdraw their lawsuits against the nuclear phase.

The power companies Eon, RWE, EnBW and Vattenfall to about half of its roughly 38 billion Euro registered Provisions cede for nuclear waste to the state. Added to a would – however capped – risk surcharge or a limited “secondary liability” in the event that nuclear disposal is expensive. The recommend the chairman of the commission that investigates the financing of the nuclear phase on behalf of the Federal Government. The demolition of the nuclear power plant and disposal of the resulting scrap is hand remain the responsibility of corporations.

With the money of a public fund to be set up from the interim storage of spent fuel and the construction of a nuclear-repository financed for highly radioactive nuclear waste. Under the proposed model, the state would need, however for the case where the disposal is estimated more expensive than before, to cover for the additional costs incurred.

The 19-member commission in October working on a financing model for the settlement of the nuclear sector. It is to ensure that does not steal the one hand the power companies as the cause of nuclear waste from the responsibility, and on the other hand, the “economic survival” of the ailing company is not also at risk. The three heads of the Commission – Ex-Federal Environment Minister Jürgen Trittin (Greens) and the ex-provincial government bosses Ole von Beust (CDU) and Matthias Platzeck (SPD) – have now made as a conclusion of the Commission deliberations internally a proposal to do so. The paper is available in the Frankfurter Rundschau

It is proposed to establish for the financing of storage and disposal a state-controlled fund, in 2022, pay the power companies a part of reserves. – namely in cash ( “in geldlicher form”), rather than in shares. 2022 is the year in which, according to the Atomic Energy Act, the last German nuclear power plants are shut down. To join the groups at least partly due to the possible additional costs, the paper includes two models – either “by a risk-premium” or “through a limited time and in the amount Secondary liability”. “The cost of storage and disposal … to enable further state,” says the paper.

Next propose Trittin and Co. that an agreement on the nuclear Finance corporations withdraw their numerous lawsuits against the State for the nuclear phase-out. Eon, RWE and Vattenfall have filed constitutional complaints against the bombarded from the previous black-yellow government to Fukushima nuclear phase. Vattenfall also wants erstreiten EUR 4.7 billion to an international arbitration court in Washington.

According to the Commission of the decommissioning of nuclear reactors and nuclear waste disposal would cost a total of around 48 billion euros at current prices , after falling for nuclear decommissioning and -Demolition to EUR 19.7 billion, for the Castor containers and transports nearly ten billion are estimated. For the interim storage of spent fuel and the disposal of the Commission estimated EUR 17.7 billion. The actual costs will be at the end because of inflation and rising costs, however, much higher. Until 2099, it could, according to the paper to be 169.8 billion euros.

So far, the four nuclear power plant operators have made in their budgets together 38.3 billion euros in provisions for nuclear-settlement that does not however lie on accounts but are investing about in power plants, power grids and other systems. Whether this calculated sum for the disposal tasks ranges is controversial, as it depends on the future rate of return. Some of the companies have provisions for the currently low interest rates already reassessed. According to the Commission paper, it might be necessary to increase the nuclear provisions to up to 68.9 billion.

environmentalists, anti-nuclear groups and the Left warned meanwhile against liability restrict the nuclear operator. “The Commission must not make an open-ended liability of operators for the decommissioning of nuclear power plants and for nuclear waste storage in question or limit”, said chairman of the environmental association BUND, Hubert Weiger. It is shocking that the NPP operation “the polluter pays principle will be undermined to a large extent” should. The left-politician Hubertus Zdebel criticized the nuclear companies will “made a multibillion dollar tax gift that can only be described as an illegal subsidy.” For decades, nuclear power plant operators had “dumb and stupid deserves”, and now a commission of the SPD, CDU and Greens and a black-red government deplore a “Compromised operators”.