Country report for Germany 2003

The primary energy consumption in Germany in 2003 was about 14300 PJ in total. The total renewable electricity production in Germany in 2003 was 46.2 billion kWh, which is an increase of 2.7 % compared with 2002. In 2003 Germany imported 45.8 TWh from France and Czech republic (with their nuclear power as base load), but exported 53.8 TWh. In 2003, 19 nuclear power plants were in operation with a total net capacity of 22.3 GWe producing about 1/3 of the total electricity production. As known, the German Federal Government took the decision to phase out of nuclear energy without paying compensations to the utilities. On 11 June 2001, the final agreement between the German utilities and the German Federal Government was signed, and the amendment to the German Atomic Law was enforced on 27 April 2002. As a first impact of this decision, the nuclear power plant of Stade was shut down at 24th November 2003. A second decision of principal importance was taken concerning storage of spent fuel. The existing contracts with France and the UK on reprocessing of spent fuel will be terminated at the end of 2005. From 2005 on reprocessing of spent fuel will be forbidden. Direct disposal of spent fuel after intermediate storage is the only allowed way to handle spent fuel. As regards the nuclear energy research in Germany, the 'Alliance for Competence in Nuclear Technology' with the main partners FZK, FZJ, FZR, GRS and associated universities compiled a summary report on the status of nuclear safety research in Germany. The mission of this Alliance is to increase the efficiency of existing R and D activities in the areas of nuclear safety and repository research, to preserve complementary competences at universities, and to support the federal government in fulfilling its legal duties. The two nuclear research centers Karlsruhe (FZK) and Juelich (FZJ) are members of the Helmholtz Association. The mission of the HGF is to perform and foster provident research in the field of natural science and medicine, which is of national importance and public interest. Within the research area energy, there are four programmes, being: renewable energies, efficient conversion of energy, fusion technology, and nuclear safety research with about 15 % of the research area energy. The German activities in this field are strictly restricted to ADS-research due to the governmental decision not to support any research in the field of new reactor systems. A major focus of research is on the 6th frame work programme of the EU and especially on the IP-EUROTRANS where the contributions of our research on transmutation are mainly embedded. The Objective of IP EUROTRANS (EUROpean Research Programme for the TRANSmutation of High Level Nuclear Waste in an Accelerator Driven System (ADS)) is the design and the feasibility assessment of an industrial ADS prototype dedicated to transmutation, together with the definition of a backup solution. IP-EUROTRANS is fully consistent with the major national programmes on Partitioning and Transmutation in Europe and there are well-defined collaborations with other international programmes in the same field, specifically to mention are the various ISTC projects which complement some of the domains of IP-EUROTRANS, and the participation of many institutions in related IAEA and OECD-NEA projects