Country report for Germany [Fast reactors in Germany]

Full text: The primary energy consumption in Germany in 2005 was about 492.6 MtSKE in total. The distribution on the main energy sources is: mineral oil: 36.4%, natural gas 22.4%, black coal 13.5%, brown coal 11.4%, nuclear energy 12.6%, water and wind 1.2%, others 2.5%. The net electricity production in Germany in 2005 was about 495.9 billion kWh. The distribution is: nuclear energy 32%, lignite coal 28.9%, black coal 23.1%, oil 0.2%, natural gas 9.1%, water 4.7%, others (being biomass, photovoltaics, wind) 2.0%. In 2005, 18 nuclear power plants were in operation in Germany. In May 2005 the KWO Obrigheim was closed due to the new Atomic law which fixes the phase out of nuclear power production. The net installed nuclear power was 20.7GWel, the net nuclear electricity production was 163TWh, the time availability was 88%. Nuclear makes up for about 50% of the base-load electricity production in Germany. In absolute numbers, Germany is number 5 in nuclear electricity production. Among the top ten nuclear power plants world-wide, in 2005 there were 7 German plants including the plant with the highest amount of electricity produced, being NPP Brokdorf with 1440MWel and 11.98TWhel. The net electricity output of the nuclear power plants is constantly increasing due to power upgrading and higher time availabilities. As for the renewable energies, there is no significant absolute increase except for wind. About 50% of the government support for renewable energies from the Environmental Ministry goes to photovoltaics. The Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft (HGF), summarising 15 national research centres, 24.000 employees and a yearly budget of about 2,1 billion Euro is the largest research organisation in Germany. The HGF identifies and works on complex and urgent questions of society, science and economy, especially concentrating on systems of high complexity. There are six research areas, being energy, earth and environment, health, key technologies, structure of matter, traffic and space. Within energy, there are four programmes: efficient energy conversion, fusion technology, nuclear safety research, renewable energies. - In 2005/2006, there was an evaluation of the research programme and long-term future of FZK by an internationally composed Perspective Commission set up by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The Commission supports the concentration of FZK on 3 columns: energy (∼50%), including the effects of energy use on the atmosphere and climate, nano- and microtechnology (33%) and astroparticle physics (17%). Becoming the preeminent energy laboratory for Germany, it should take the lead in developing an energy R and D strategy for Germany including the aspect of societal understanding and acceptance of new energy sources. It is recommended that FZK should be the German liaison to the international R and D effort on Generation IV fission reactors. However, this recommendation still needs the approval of the German government. As for nuclear energy research, the Alliance for Competence in Nuclear Technology set up a consistent and efficiency nuclear R and D programme including all nuclear stake holders in Germany. In this context, some seven heads of nuclear institutes (e.g. nuclear technology, reactor physics, actinide chemistry, repository research) are presently being replaced. This is in line with a survey of 2004 which set the need for about 6300 academic nuclear personnel in 2010, out of which about 2000 have to be newly positioned. Having the decision for an EPR in Finland this number of required academics is even increasing. German nuclear institutions are involved in all major international programmes and projects in the areas of reactor safety, partitioning and transmutation, and waste disposal. Due to the research-political conditions, a German contribution to the Generation IV Initiative using government budget is not yet possible. (author)