Germany to Shut All Nuclear Plants by 2022

Germany on Monday became the first major industrialized power to agree an end to nuclear power in the wake of the disaster in Japan, with a phase-out due to be completed by 2022.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said the decision, hammered out by her center-right coalition overnight, and marked the start of a "fundamental" rethink of energy policy in the world's number four economy.

"We want the electricity of the future to be safer and at the same time reliable and affordable," Merkel told reporters as she accepted the findings of an expert commission on nuclear power she appointed in March in response to the crisis at Japan's Fukushima plant.

"That means we must have a new approach to the supply network, energy efficiency, renewable energy and also long-term monitoring of the process," she said.

The commission found that it would be viable within a decade for Germany to mothball all 17 of its nuclear reactors, eight of which are currently off the electricity grid.

Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen announced the gradual shutdown early Monday after seven hours of negotiations at Merkel's offices between the ruling coalition partners. He said the decision was "irreversible".

Seven of the plants already offline are the country's oldest reactors, which the federal government shut down for three months pending a safety probe after the Fukushima emergency.

The eighth is the Kruemmel plant, in northern Germany, which has been offline for years due to repeated technical problems.

Monday's decision made Germany the first major industrial power to announce plans to give up atomic energy entirely.

But it also means that the country will have to find the 22 percent of its electricity needs currently covered by nuclear power from other sources.

Roettgen insisted there was no danger of blackouts.

"We assure that the electricity supply will be ensured at all times and for all users," he pledged, without elaborating.

Already Friday, the environment ministers from all 16 German regional states had called for the temporary moratorium on the seven plants to be made permanent.

Roettgen said Monday that none of the eight reactors offline would be reactivated. Six further reactors would be shut down by the end of 2021 and the three most modern would cease operations by the end of 2022.

Monday's decision is effectively a return to the timetable set by a previous Social Democrat-Green coalition government a decade ago.

It is a humbling U-turn for Merkel, who at the end of 2010 decided to extend the lifetime of Germany's 17 reactors by an average of 12 years, which would have kept them open until the mid-2030s.

That decision was unpopular in Germany even before the earthquake and tsunami in March that severely damaged the Fukushima facility, which sparked mass anti-nuclear protests in Germany.

Merkel's zigzagging on what has been a highly emotive issue in the country since the 1970s has cost her since at the ballot box.

She herself blamed the Fukushima catastrophe for recent state election debacles which saw the anti-nuclear Greens gain ground.

Environmental pressure group Greenpeace welcomed the plans for a nuclear shutdown but lamented it would take until 2022.

Meanwhile industrial giant Daimler warned it would undermine Germany's standing as Europe's top economy.

"I see certain risks for Germany as a place to do business," chief executive Dieter Zetschke told the daily Bild, adding that he saw the decision as "strongly colored by emotions".

"Turning our backs on an affordable energy supply is clearly a risk."

Some coalition members had called for a built-in revision clause which could have seen the decision revisited, but this was thrown out in the final round of negotiations.

The Fukushima accident has sparked a renewed global debate about the safety of nuclear power, with opinions differing widely.

The United States and Britain have announced plans to build new reactors as an alternative to producing harmful greenhouse gas emissions while ensuring a relatively cheap supply of energy.