“An incalculable risk”

The decommissioning and dismantling of nuclear power plants is likely to be much more expensive than previously thought, Jan Schmitt writes on tagesschau.de, the website of German public broadcaster ARD's flagship news show. For instance, the price for dismantling the power plant near Greifswald in the East, which was built in the former communist German Democratic Republic, was originally estimated at 3.2 billion euros. It will cost at least 6.5 billion euros, Henry Cordes, chairperson of the nuclear dismantling service company Energiewerke Nord (EWN), told tagesschau.de. “Sociopolitically, this technology is a dreadful mistake,” said Cordes. The amount of money that utilities needed to provide for decommissioning, dismantling and waste disposal – according to current proposals – was not enough, criticises Claudia Kemfert of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW).

Read the article in German on tagesschau.de.

For more information read the CLEW factsheet Securing utility payments for the nuclear clean-up.