By PATRICK MCGROARTY and VANESSA FUHRMANS | The Wall Street Journal | Link to article
BERLIN—Germany on Monday said it would close all of its 17 nuclear reactors by 2022, a sharp policy reversal that will make it the first major economy to quit atomic power in the wake of the nuclear crisis in Japan.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that she plans to follow a government-appointed commission’s recommendation to shut eight of the country’s reactors immediately and close most of the others by 2021. Three plants may be kept online into 2022 as a source of reserve power, she added.
“After what was, for me anyway, an unimaginable disaster in Fukushima, we have had to reconsider the role of nuclear energy,” Ms. Merkel said, announcing the decision at a news conference with several of her cabinet ministers.
“This path sets out a great challenge for Germany,” she added, but “we can be the first industrial country to make the transition into an age of highly efficient and renewable energy.”
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