OREANDA-NEWS. September 8, 2008. Now that energy resources are growing in price Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel has spoken out against Germany’s plans to stop developing nuclear energy.

Merkel believes that Germany must extend the lives of its nuclear power plants. During a conference of the Christian-Democratic Union today Merkel said that single country had so far banned nuclear energy.

She said that the people advocating the shutdown of coal and nuclear power plants were irresponsible. If Germany shuts down its NPPs it will face an energy crisis and will become dependent on energy import.

Meanwhile, the Government of Germany has approved a program of nuclear phase-out: the old licenses are being prolonged but no new NPPs are being built. The law pushed though by the “red-green” government seven years ago says that all 17 Germany nuclear power plants must be stopped by 2021. The Social-Democrats are planning to fix the ban on NPPs in Germany’s constitution.

Germany’s 17 NPPs produce 30% of its electricity. The Christian-Democratic Union advocates development of nuclear power plants, renewable energy sources, energy saving, use of old coal plants while the Social-Democrats and Alliance ’90/The Greens believe that it is admissible to extend the lives of the plant as the problem of the burial of their waste has not been solved yet. One of their key arguments is the numerous accidents that have taken place at German NPPs in the last years.