New Atomic Energy Act enters into force

Following its signing by the Federal president, the new Act on the Phase-out of Nuclear Power was promulgated in the Federal Law Gazette on 26 April, entering into force one day later. The "Gesetz zur geordneten Beendigung der Kernenergienutzung zur gewerblichen Erzeugung von Elektrizität" ("Act on the structured phase-out of the utilisation of nuclear energy for the commercial generation of electricity") makes fundamental amendments to the 1959 Atomic Energy Act: Instead of aiming to promote nuclear energy, the purpose of the act now is to phase out its use in a structured manner.

Federal Environment Minister Jürgen Trittin called the new Atomic Energy Act, which prohibits the construction of new nuclear power stations in Germany, "the logical response to Chernobyl" and added "it is very appropriate that Germany's phase-out of nuclear power should become legally binding on the 16th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster."

The new Atomic Energy Act, a key project in the German Government's environmental reform, legally secures the 14 July 2000 agreement between the Government and the energy supply companies, in which nuclear power plant operators accepted the decision of the German Government and legislators to reassess the risks of using nuclear energy. The result of this reassessment has confirmed what many experts and politicians have long been convinced of - that in the long term, the use of nuclear energy for electricity generation is unacceptable due to its high risks. Consequently, it must be phased out in a structured manner.

Among the key points of the amendment is the ban on constucting new commercial nuclear power plants and the restriction of the residual operating life of existing nuclear power plants to 32 years from the time of the plant's start up. The new Act lays down a maximum permitted residual electricity volume for each individual nuclear power plant. The electricity volumes of older NPP can be transferred to newer plants. In anticipation of the legal regulation, the company E.ON has announced that the Stade plant will be taken from the grid in 2003, before the residual electricity volume has been reached. For the first time, there are legal stipulations for compulsory regular safety reviews for nuclear power plants.

The Act furthermore contains the following provisions in particular:

1. the purpose of the Act is not (as before) to promote nuclear energy, but to phase it out in a structured manner: on-going operation must be ensured up to the date of the plant's discontinuation.
2. waste management is restricted to direct final disposal; from 1 July 2005, delivery of irradiated fuel rods from nuclear power plants to reprocessing plants will be prohibited.
3. operators will be obligated to erect and use interim storage facilities for spent fuel rods at the location of the NPP.
4. financial security for nuclear power plants will be increased 10-fold to 2.5 billion Euros.

The obligation for NPP operators to erect and use interim facilities in the vicinity of the plant for spent fuel rods will allow waste management to be distributed more fairly among the federal Länder and and considerably ease the burden on the central interim disposal sites at Gorleben and Ahaus. The erection of interim facilities and the ban on transports to reprocessing facilities in July 2005 will lead to a drastic reduction in transports of nuclear waste. In practice, such transports will be limited to the return of German nuclear waste from reprocessing. The German Government is obligated to take back Germany's nuclear waste stored abroad.

"Renewable energies, greater energy efficiency, energy saving and the nuclear phase-out are the corner stones of a responsible and future-oriented energy policy," said Federal Enviroment Minister Jürgen Trittin. "During this legislative period we have set a new course in all these sectors. This new direction in energy policy shows that a major industrialised country can prosper without using electricity generated from nuclear energy."