Germany's Gabriel sticks to pro-coal, anti-nuclear stance

Freiburg (Platts)--8Mar2007

German environment minister Sigmar Gabriel said the government was not
doing enough to protect the climate. In an interview on German television
Wednesday evening, the minister, who belongs to the anti-nuclear SPD coalition
party, said he continued to support coal as a source for power generation.

"The anti-coal ideology will only bring us back to nuclear power, and I
don't want that," he said. "The concurrent exit from coal and nuclear plants
to be replaced with renewables by 2020 is utopian. Our aim is to replace old
coal units with an efficiency rate below 30% with newer technology of 45%
efficiency."

The SPD argues the long-term use of nuclear power plants was higher in
emissions than brown coal units when the whole chain of their use and waste
processing was taken into consideration.

In its previous coalition with the Green Party, the SPD reached agreement
with industry to phase out all nuclear power by 2020. Its current coalition
partner, the CDU, has said that if Germany wants to meet its Kyoto targets,
then cancelling this agreement--the "exit from the exit"--was unavoidable.