IAEA’s Grossi calls a German return to nuclear power ‘logical’

A return to nuclear power for Germany would be “logical,” the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, told dpa in an interview.

“I think it’s a logical. It’s a rational position,” Grossi said, noting that Germany is the only country in the world to have completely phased out nuclear energy.

Policymakers in Berlin might ponder why others haven’t, he said during an interview on Wednesday at the UN Climate Conference in Baku.

“You might wonder: Why does the rest of the world see things differently?” Grossi said. He added: “I respect German politics, and you are going through a very complex phase, so we will see.”

The IAEA chief noted that all other countries that had announced similar intentions are since “peddling back. Some visibly, some less visibly.”

He said he was “not surprised” that now German parties are calling for a return to nuclear energy.

Grossi pointed out that nuclear power plants emit virtually no climate-damaging greenhouse gases. For the planet, he said, it would therefore be “a very bad idea” to abolish nuclear energy.

“This is why countries that have nuclear want more nuclear,” he said. “Many countries that did not have nuclear want nuclear.”

Merkel initiated nuclear phase-out

Just last week the conservative CDU-CSU opposition in the parliament of Bundestag described the shutting down of the last nuclear power plants in April 2023 during the energy crisis as an ideologically motivated misstep by the centre-left coalition. Now, a reassessment is needed to determine whether restarting operations is still possible “under acceptable technical and financial conditions,” it said.

Angela Merkel, the former chancellor from the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party was the one who initiated the nuclear phase-out following Japan’s Fukushima disaster.

Grossi emphasized that he did not want to personally label Germany’s nuclear phase-out as a mistake. “I don’t challenge the democratically taken decisions of our member states,” he told dpa.