News broke last Sunday, a little late though but worth posting here that industrial giant Siemens is exiting the nuclear business – a direct consequence of the country’s decision to abandon a nuclear future, itself triggered by last March’s nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan.
Siemens chief executive Peter Loescher told Spiegel magazine it was the firm's answer to "the clear positioning of German society and politics for a pullout from nuclear energy".
"The chapter for us is closed," he said, announcing that the firm will no longer build nuclear power stations.
A long-planned joint venture with Russian nuclear firm Rosatom will also be cancelled, although Mr Loescher said he would still seek to work with their partner "in other fields".
Siemens was responsible for building all 17 of Germany's existing nuclear power plants, which will be shutdown by 2022 as announced last May by German chancellor, Angela Merkel. Although more recently, the firm has limited itself to providing the non-nuclear parts of plants being built by other firms, including current projects in China and Finland.
The latest decision according to BBC report appears to imply a step back from building "conventional islands" - the non-nuclear plant in nuclear power stations - an area in which Siemens has remained active.
However, Mr Loescher also said Siemens would continue to make components, such as steam turbines, that are used in the conventional power industry, but can also be used in nuclear plants.
He also gave his backing to the German government's planned switch to renewable energy sources, calling it a "project of the century" and claiming Berlin's target of reaching 35% renewable energy by 2020 was achievable.
source: BBC & SmartPlanet.com
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