Germany E.ON calls for doubling reactor running times

Freiburg (Platts)--15Mar2006

The chief executive of German energy group E.ON, said the life times for nuclear power plant of 60 years, as is the case in the United States or Sweden, should be taken as a basis for Germany also, Wulf Bernotat said in an interview with German paper 'Rheinische Post' published Wednesday.

This would mean nuclear units could run until 2050, not until 2020 as planned under Germany's so-called atom consensus agreed between the previous, SPD-Green party coalition government and industry in 2001. That plan aims for an average life time of 32 years for nuclear units in operation.

The current CDU-SPD government has said it would not change the decommissioning plans, but pressure from industry and members of the CDU party is growing ahead of Germany's energy summit on April 3. Bernotat also called for a clear date on the end to state subsidies for local hard coal.

Bernotat said hard coal could not be generated at competitive prices, but if an exit was carried out too fast, tens of thousands of jobs could be lost.

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