BERLIN: Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling coalition declared on Monday it would shut all of Germany's nuclear reactors by 2022, in a policy reversal drawn up in a rush after the Fukushima disaster in Japan. The coalition, sensitive to accusations it may increase dependence on highly polluting brown coal, said it planned to cut power use by 10 percent by 2020. But Merkel may be hard pressed to present the plan as anything but a political defeat at the hands of Social Democrat and resurgent Green rivals. The proposal may be even more more ambitious than the nuclear exit planned when the Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens were in power in 2000. It takes eight of 17 nuclear plants offline now and six by 2021. But it could still face opposition from utilities. Only nine months ago Merkel announced an extension of the lifespan of unpopular nuclear plants by an average 12 years. In March, after Japan's earthquake and tsunami, she reversed that and put Germany's entire energy strategy under urgent review. “Our energy system has to be fundamentally changed and can be fundamentally changed. We want the electricity of the future to be safer and, at the same time, reliable and economical,” Merkel said. To accompany the nuclear exit, Germany plans to cut electricity usage by 10 percent by 2020 and double the share of renewable energy sources to 35 percent over the same period, according to a government paper. Merkel did not outline further details of the plan but the government paper said Germany's goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2020 remained in place. Most voters in Germany oppose atomic energy, which provided 23 percent of overall power before the seven oldest stations were shut down in March.
