...in Finland.
Germany has a "nuclear phase out" in place and has become the world leader in the installation of solar and wind capacity.
Just in case wind and solar doesn't work out all that great, and in case Britain and Ireland buy up too much French power, Germany is building 26 new giant coal plants.
As extra security, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder - under whom the "nuclear phase out" became official policy - has joined the Board of Directors at Gazprom, the Russian natural gas giant. This should give him leverage in pleading Germany's case in the scenario that the rest of Europe, all of which is dependent on Russian natural gas, competes with Germany for access.
Apparently all this coal and gas is not enough. I have written previously about the new German policy of NIMBY export.
Apparently, despite enormous optimism throughout the world about the German commitment to renewable energy - I remind you they are world leaders, meaning they are ahead of everyone else, meaning the German's are the cat's meow, meaning that they've really got it wired, they've got it down pat - some German utilities are well, how shall we put this, um, unduly nervous and insecure.
I mean, what if there's a carbon tax, even one where new German coal plants count? What then?
Not to worry. NIMBY export works.
The Slovenians and the Slovakians Ain't Got Nothing On the Finns!
German utility EOn is considering building a new nuclear plant in southern Finland and has agreed to buy land for a possible site.
The company has agreed to buy land in Loviisa for an undisclosed price with an option that could include building the plant. Loviisa, 55 miles east of Helsinki, is already home to two pressurized water reactors, owned by Finnish utility Fortum.
Land ownership is a precondition for securing Finnish approval for the project. EOn said it would examine the technological, economic and ecological requirements for building a reactor before seeking approval. The company's Finnish unit, EOn Suomi, has invited other interested Finnish companies to join the project.
Finnish prime minister Matti Vanhanen underlined that while power companies were free to submit applications, the government would consider issues including the competitive situation of utilities, the schedule of projects and the number of stations to be built when assessing those applications.
Finland currently has four operating nuclear units with a fifth under construction. Finnish utilities TVO and Fortum recently launched environmental impact assessment processes for the construction of a sixth plant.
Here's the great advantage for the Finns. Finnish is not an Indo-European language, being only one of three such languages in Europe (outside of Russia) to be outside of this linguistic family. (The other two are Basque and Hungarian.) The Finnish language has sixteen cases (compared to four in German) and confuses even Finns. It is said that for 11 months of the year, the Finnish parliament debates grammar, and that for one month of the year they all agree to speak Swedish and conduct all of the country's business.
Thus after the "phase out" Germans have built the new nuclear power plant and connected to it to the grid, the Finns can point out to the Germans that the contract (in Finnish) specifically indicates that the plant was meant to power Helsinki and not Berlin. An easy approach to this legalistic interpretation could be made by claiming that all of the nouns referring to the "future" in the contract were actually written in the abessiivi case, a case that exists in Finnish only for specifying the meaning provided in English by the preposition "without." (Finnish has so many cases to avoid prepositions.)
"See here?" the Finns could say pointing to phrases in the contract having the abessiivi case, "you specifically signed a statement that says "German rights here are without a future!!!"
Dig that coal! Dig that coal! Dig that coal!