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| Fig. 1: A breakdown of French energy consumption by source in 2021. [4] (Source: L. Pistor) |
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| Fig. 2: A breakdown of German energy consumption by source in 2021. [4] (Source: L. Pistor) |
It was in the year 1938, in the Berlin Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry, that the first induced fission of uranium atoms was carried out by Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann. The experimental data was analyzed by Jewish physicist Lise Meitner, who had fled to Sweden after the 1938 annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany. [1] In the following decades, the use of nuclear power in the German energy economy grew greatly. This was due in no small part due to Germany's lack of alternate fuel sources, which left it reliant on Persian Gulf countries for oil and gas. [2] However, this state of affairs quickly began to shift as the social consensus turned against nuclear power.
While Germany was an early adopter of nuclear power, opening its first commercial plant in 1961, public opinion shifted against the widespread use of nuclear power following a series of nuclear accidents in the late 1900s, including the 1979 Three Mile Island accident and 1986 Chernobyl accident. In the wake of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, widespread anti-nuclear protests broke out across the country. [3] By chance, an election that had been scheduled on the heels of this disaster allowed for these protests to influence political opinion sufficiently to begin a 10-year phase-out of nuclear power, which has seen German consumption of nuclear power drop from 1.32 exajoules in 2011 to 0.57 exajoules in 2020. [4]
France was similarly early to the use of nuclear power. In the years since the 1973 oil crisis, French support for nuclear power has been comparatively strong even immediately following the Fukushima disaster, just 17% of French citizens were polled as being opposed to the use of nuclear energy. [5] Today, France generates 77% of its energy budget using nuclear power, though the French government has committed to diversifying its energy portfolio and reducing this proportion to 50% by 2035. This can be seen in Fig. 1, in comparison with the German energy mix presented in Fig. 2. [6,7]
Despite Germany and France enjoying a similar distribution of natural resources and set of economic pressures, the reactions of the German and French populations to the nuclear disasters of the late 20th and early 21st centuries were very different, which acted to guide the nuclear energy policies of these two countries in two very different directions. Further, Germany's position as the aggressor in World War II prevented it from developing nuclear weapons capability, meaning that it has less control over the nuclear fuel cycle than France. While both nations look favorably upon the idea of eventually generating all of their power from environmentally sustainable resources, the use of nuclear power is one key differentiator in the energy economy of these two nations.
© Luca Pistor. The author warrants that the work is the author's own and that Stanford University provided no input other than typesetting and referencing guidelines. The author grants permission to copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered form, with attribution to the author, for noncommercial purposes only. All other rights, including commercial rights, are reserved to the author.
[1] R. Gast, "Am Ende des Fortschritts," Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 1 Jul 11.
[2] "Energy Resources 2009," BGR Bundesanstalt für Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe, (2009)
[3] M.-L. Timcke et al., "Wo Atomkraftwerke Abgeschaltet Werden und wo Neue ans Netz Gehen," Berliner Morgenpost, 11 Mar 21.
[4] "BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2022," British Petroleum, June 2022.
[5] T. Patel, "Atomic Spat Rocks French Election as Sarkozy Rival Backs Halts," Bloomberg, 1 Dec 11.
[6] D. Francks, "Nuclear Development in France," Physics 241, Stanford University, Winter 2016.
[7] G. de Clercq and M. Rose, "France Cutting Nuclear Share of Power Production," Reuters, 7 Nov 178.