Energiewende

On April 15, 2023, Germany shut down its last nuclear power plant. For over six decades, Germans had been getting up to a quarter of their energy from nuclear plants. Over the years, the political will to phase out nuclear power often waffled, highly dependent on popular pressure. The 2023 phaseout was not inevitable: it was a hard-won milestone in Germany’s transition toward a safer, more democratic energy system.

In 1971, Germany’s government adopted its first environmental policy program and formed the German Advisory Council on the Environment. Environmentalists in the early 1970s had pushed for holistic changes in the system, including an overhaul of nuclear energy efforts as the implications of nuclear power became part of public conversation. Activists and farmers occupied a site intended for a new nuclear reactor in 1973, drawing much public attention to the movement. The occupation proved successful, but oil shortages caused by the Yom Kippur War—and, later, the Iran-Iraq War—created a renewed interest in nuclear energy.

Germany’s Green Party, founded in 1979, won its first parliamentary seats in West Germany’s lower chamber in 1983. Its elected members brought with them the notion of “Energiewende”—literally meaning energy transition or energy change—which called for a transition to a renewable energy system controlled by local communities.

A newly popularized understanding of climate change brought about a 1987 Green Party proposal to drastically reduce carbon emissions in the decades approaching the 2000s. At the same time, renewed opposition to nuclear power developed in 1986 following the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, and this opposition successfully pressured the German government to agree on a nuclear phaseout date. But, just when it seemed that the phaseout would happen, a conservative government rolled back plans in 2010.

Then came the Fukushima meltdown of 2011. The anti-nuclear movement surged once again, and the government responded to the massive pressure coming from the people, again re-establishing a nuclear phaseout date.

Today, the fight for clean energy continues in Germany. Nuclear is out, but in the face of new crises, the German people, the German government, and industry interests are again engaged in the push and pull of deciding the fates of fossil energy sources like coal and natural gas.

The Energiewende calls not only for green energy but also for a democratized energy system. Renewable sources can be owned by individuals, municipalities, and communities. This redistributes power over the grid through a bottom-up approach led by energy activists and community leaders.

Opposition to the Energiewende primarily stems from the coal industry, particularly mining trade unions. As a stable and relatively cheap form of energy, coal is widely supported by Germany’s industrial base. Jobs in the renewable sector are far less protected by unions and tend to lack reasonable worker contracts, and the transition requires an energy surcharge for consumers.

For the Energiewende and German climate activists, there have been significant setbacks. After the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, the clean energy movement took a hit in its ability to organize demonstrations and campaigns. Then, when Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in early 2022 and Europe mobilized to pull away from Russian energy sources, there was a renewed effort for increasing development of new gas contracts and infrastructure. As Europe and Germany in particular face an energy shortage, in large part due to the invasion and sanctions on Russian energy, there has been a big push from powerful institutions like the European Commission to transition to natural gas as a bridge technology.

But the crisis is an opportunity. “Energy policy is a highly controlled, elite controlled policy field,” says Tadzio Müller, longtime climate activist, political scientist, and researcher. It took time, but it was public pressure from the German people that resulted in the nuclear phaseout. Despite setbacks and delays, “we re-established the principle that social movements can demand phase-out dates for dirty technologies,” says Müller, referring to a 2038 phase-out date for coal in Germany.

The Energiewende lives on, aiming to curb carbon emissions and create a carbon-free, renewable grid by 2050. But its implications run deeper. It stands for a future of decentralized, community-owned power as people claim ownership of renewable energy sources.