The two allegedly conspired to prevent their respective bosses from getting acquainted with any technical reports that refuted this assumption. According to the article, these documents dated March 2022 clearly pointed out that with starkly diminishing Russian gas imports, an “extension of the nuclear power plants’ operational life” could have alleviated the dire situation in Germany’s energy sector and prevented prices from skyrocketing in the coming winter.
However, the Green higher-ups, unhappy with this conclusion, allegedly rewrote the document, ramming home the message that any prolongation of the remaining nuclear power plants’ operation “is not tenable on technical-security grounds.”
Cicero claims that Economy Minister Robert Habeck most likely only saw the reworked version of the report, and not the original.
Faced with the threat of looming energy deficits, on October 17, Chancellor Olaf Scholz ordered the remaining three nuclear power plants to remain operational throughout the winter, despite warnings coming out of the Economy and Environment ministries. However, as Cicero notes, the overall trend toward the total phasing out of nuclear power-generation has remained unchanged. READ MORE: German industry ‘moving abroad’ – Bild
With energy prices on the rise, Germany’s prized industrial sector has found itself increasingly at a disadvantage, with one in three manufacturers considering moving production overseas as a result, Bild reported in February.