The German chancellor Angela Merkel has decided to decommission all the countries nuclear power stations by 2022, starting with the 7 oldest reactors this year. Alongside the end of German nuclear power Angela Merkel has stated that the country will be cutting emissions by 80% by 2050 and will rely heavily on ‘green’ energy, which at present can be highly unreliable and could potentially mean higher exports from the UK and other sources to aid Germany’s lack of generation and potential black outs. Another debate surrounding Germany’s decision is the massive hike in green house emissions (approximately an additional 40 million metric tons) they will likely end up releasing into the atmosphere by inevitably needing to build more gas fired power stations. This will cause a few eyebrows to be raised after last year’s global emissions rose by 5% on 2008 and set a new record level (not really the direction the Kyoto Protocol wanted to go!)
Coal prices have also hiked up in the past few days on the back of Germany’s news as this year and through to the next Germany will be relying heavily on coal generation power.
Electricity and Gas month ahead prices
