Germany is shutting down half of the six nuclear plants it still has in operation on Friday. This decision comes a year before the country is ending its decades=long use of atomic power. Germany is shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy, a decision tha tws first taken by the former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s government in 2002. His successor set 2022 as the final deadline for shutting down Germany’s nuclear plants after the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan.
The reactors being shuttered were first powered up in the 1980s. They provided electricity to millions of German households for almost 40 years. One of the three plants, brokdorf, was a focus of anti-nuclear protests in 1986. The other two plants are Grohnde and Grundemmingen. The German government said that decommissioning all nuclear plants next year and phasing out the use of coal by 2030 will not affect the country’s energy security or its goal of making the economy “climate neutral” by 2045.
Read more: Germany shuts down half of its remaining nuclear plants