Debate about Munich energy policy: should the Isar 2 nuclear power plant continue?
Munich – At the beginning of the year, Munich Mayor Dieter Reiter (CSU) wished Fridays for Future applause. At that time he stated: This winter, the municipal utility should convert the coal-fired power plant in the north of Munich to natural gas. The city would also withdraw from nuclear power. And the gas and oil business should end the Stadtwerke. It will probably be a while before the mayor can get applause for all these steps. The city will not be able to say goodbye to coal-fired power any time soon. This is according to a statement from Stadtwerke München (SWM).
War in Ukraine: SWM see gas supply at risk
Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine is jeopardizing a future reliable supply of natural gas, so die SWM. At the moment, the southern German natural gas storage facilities are less than 20 percent full. Gas flows from Russia remain “well below the long-term average”. Gas prices have now quintupled in wholesale, so SWM. It is uncertain whether it will be possible to fill the gas storage facilities in southern Germany in the summer. The managing director of Stadtwerke Florian Bieberbach therefore proposes that block 2 in the north thermal power station be operated again with coal in the next heating period. A majority of the city council will probably agree.
The CSU parliamentary group requested on Wednesday that the conversion of the thermal power station should be postponed. SPD city councilor Simone Burger, who sits on the supervisory board of Stadtwerke, also announced that her group would postpone the coal phase-out by a year. Even the energy expert of the Green Party, Dominik Krause, does not rule out that the city will continue to burn coal.
How secure is Munich’s energy supply?
Krause and Burger both emphasize that the gas supply in Munich is secure and that there is no need to panic. The CSU boss Manuel Pretzl and economics officer Clemens Baumgärtner (CSU) sound more concerned. From their point of view, the city should now take accelerated precautions so that the people of Munich don’t sit in cold apartments next winter.
According to the CSU, this includes the fact that the public utilities should not stop their oil and gas business after all. They are involved through the company Spirit Energy. The city council recently decided that the municipal utility should sell its licenses to Norwegian gas and oil fields. According to SWM, the proceeds are 300 million euros. However, the sale has not yet been completed.
The CSU is now calling for the decision to be reconsidered. Business consultant Baumgärtner thinks that makes sense. From his point of view, the sale was premature. If Spirit Energy isn’t producing gas and oil in the North Sea, then another company will do it, he says. Nothing has been gained for climate protection.
Will the Isar 2 nuclear power plant continue to run? The decision is up to the federal government
Burger and Krause see it differently. The gas that Spirit Energy promotes does not arrive in Munich anyway, she explains. Although Baumgärtner agrees that the gas WILL be fed into the European grid and not necessarily used to heat Munich apartments, he emphasizes: “Our security of supply will certainly not improve as a result of the sale.”
And the CSU makes another suggestion that environmental activists are unlikely to like: The Isar 2 nuclear power plant, which was actually supposed to go offline at the end of 2022, is now supposed to continue running. Although the public utilities have a 25 percent stake in the power plant, it would ultimately have to be decided by federal politicians.
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