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NECKARWESTHEIM/LINGEN/ESSENBACH (dpa-AFX) - It was debated for a long time - but now the era of electricity production from nuclear power in Germany has ended. The last three nuclear power plants were shut down on Saturday. According to the operators, the first to be disconnected from the grid was the Emsland nuclear power plant in Lower Saxony at 10:37 p.m. on Saturday evening. This was followed by Isar 2 in Bavaria at 11:52 p.m. and Neckarwestheim 2 in Baden-Württemberg at 11:59 p.m. last. This historic step was supposed to put an end to the controversial issue once and for all. But the supporters of nuclear power stubbornly insist on the high-risk technology - above all the CDU/CSU.

For example, Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU), who is campaigning for election, demanded in the newspaper "Bild am Sonntag" that the Atomic Energy Act be amended once again and that the states be given responsibility so that Bavaria can operate the shut-down reactor on its own. However, this is considered politically impossible, which Söder must know.

The Federal Office for Nuclear Waste Safety (BASE) then classified him as unreliable. "Today's demands by the Bavarian prime minister underscore how important it is that political responsibility for nuclear safety in Germany lies with the federal government," President Wolfram König told the Deutsche Presse-Agentur. "The Bundestag and all the federal states, including Bavaria, have not only agreed to phase out nuclear energy, but have also set in motion the search for a final repository based on scientific criteria." He added that Bavaria's demanded special path contradicts current law and jeopardizes the search for a final repository.

Even among energy companies, interest in continued operation in the future appears to be limited. "The chapter is now closed," the head of RWE, the operator of the Emsland nuclear power plant, Markus Krebber, said in a statement. "Now it's a matter of putting all our energy into pushing ahead with the construction of hydrogen-capable gas-fired power plants as quickly as possible, in addition to renewables, to ensure security of supply when Germany ideally also wants to phase out coal in 2030."

The co-ruling FDP, which had campaigned for reserve power until the very end, now brought nuclear fusion into play as a possible energy source. This is only an idea so far, but would involve little radioactivity and without the risk of a chain reaction. In an interview with dpa, FDP Secretary General Bijan Djir-Sarai advised that research into this should be expanded.

The opposition CDU/CSU also advocated this. However, that would require an amendment to the Atomic Energy Act, its parliamentary secretary Thorsten Frei (CDU) told the Düsseldorf-based "Rheinische Post" (Monday). "I doubt the wisdom of the traffic light to actually do this."

A good 62 years ago, Germany's first nuclear power plant had gone into commercial operation in Kahl in Lower Franconia. After the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, then-Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) pushed through Germany's final phase-out of the technology: The last three nuclear power plants should have been taken off the grid at the end of last year. However, due to Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, the traffic light coalition led by Merkel's successor Olaf Scholz (SPD) decided after weeks of discussion in the fall to keep the reactors running through the winter until mid-April.

The phase-out now marks the beginning of a new energy era: opponents of nuclear power celebrated the historic step on Saturday with festivities in Berlin and elsewhere. Several hundred people came to Neckarwestheim for a "shutdown festival" and in Munich, too, the Bund Naturschutz and Greenpeace organized a "nuclear phase-out festival". In the nuclear power plant town of Lingen in Lower Saxony, hundreds of opponents of nuclear power demonstrated against the ANF fuel element factory, which is also located there and belongs to the French Framatome Group, and also demanded its closure.

But the nuclear issue is far from over with the phase-out. First, the reactors have to be dismantled. The Baden-Württemberg operator EnBW has explained the procedure, which is similar for all three reactors: when dismantling can begin, the 193 fuel elements are to be removed from the reactor pressure vessel first and transferred to the neighboring storage pool. Over time, for example, the nuclear systems will then be decontaminated, main coolant lines will be dismantled, and reactor pressure vessel internals will be disassembled. All in all, nuclear dismantling should be completed in 10 to 15 years. But then, for example, buildings will still be standing on the site.

The Herculean task of radioactive waste also remains open. "Our work is far from over with the shutdown of the last nuclear power plants," said Environment Minister Steffi Lemke (Greens). "We have used nuclear power for about three generations in our country, producing waste that will remain dangerous for 30,000 generations." In 2017, the search for a central nuclear waste repository had been restarted - there is no result anytime soon./svv/DP/he