Berlin: German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said a decision to phase out nuclear power by 2022 can make her country a trailblazer in renewable energy. Ms Merkel said Germany would reap economic benefits from the move.
Germany is the biggest industrial power to renounce nuclear energy, in a policy reversal for the governing centre-right coalition.
Mrs Merkel set up a panel to review nuclear power following the crisis at Fukushima in Japan.
The crisis, triggered by an earthquake and tsunami in March, led to mass anti-nuclear protests across Germany.
The anti-nuclear drive boosted Germany’s Green party, which took control of the Christian Democrat stronghold of Baden-Wuerttemberg, in late March.
Analysts say Mrs Merkel may be eyeing a future coalition with the Greens.
Mrs Merkel said that in its “fundamental” rethink of policy, Germany could set an example for other countries.
“We believe we as a country can be a trailblazer for a new age of renewable energy sources,” the German chancellor was quoted as saying by media reports.
“We can be the first major industrialised country that achieves the transition to renewable energy with all the opportunities – for exports, development, technology, jobs – it carries with it.”
She also said that electricity in the future should be “safer and at the same time reliable and affordable”, linking the decision to step back from nuclear power to the crisis in Japan.
“We learned from Fukushima that we have to deal differently with risks,” she said.
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