Angela Merkel¡¯s freshly released autobiography admits to few wrong turns in her 16 years as German chancellor. Among the momentous decisions she doesn¡¯t regret is Germany¡¯s frantic withdrawal from nuclear energy in favor of Russian gas. But the country should rethink this. Everyone else is ¡ª and for good reason.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz¡¯s outgoing coalition may not admit it, but their completion of Merkel¡¯s accelerated nuclear exit was a mistake. When Scholz took office in 2021, Germany imported half of its gas and coal and a third of its oil from Russia. Then Russia invaded Ukraine, and Germany had to find expensive replacements. The country¡¯s last nuclear plants were closed in April 2023 even though they still provided 12.6% of electricity in 2021.
There has been deafening political obstinacy about this. ¡°We can achieve climate targets without nuclear power,¡± Merkel insists in her memoir. Scholz told critics to stop flogging the ¡°dead horse¡± that was nuclear energy.
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