GERMAN ENGINEERING conglomerate Siemens is closing the door on nuclear energy, ending the manufacture of all components used exclusively in the nuclear energy field.
Siemens chief executive Peter Löscher said the decision was a response to the shift in German public and political opinion towards nuclear energy after the Fukushima nuclear accident. The Japanese disaster triggered a revival of Germany’s plan to go nuclear free by 2022.
"We will no longer be involved in overall managing of building or financing nuclear plants. This chapter is closed for us," said Mr Löscher to Der Spiegel. "We will from now on supply only conventional equipment such as steam turbines.
“This means we are restricting ourselves to technologies that are not only for nuclear purposes but can also be used in gas or coal plants.”
The company had already farmed out its nuclear business into a joint partnership with France’s Areva, in which Siemens was the junior partner.
It then chose to exit that partnership, at a cost of €648 million in fines, to enter a joint nuclear partnership with Russia’s Rosatom in 2009. The new partnership aimed to develop a new-generation nuclear reactor that would have competed with Areva’s own new reactor technology.
Now Siemens has decided to end the Russian partnership as well, at no cost to the company.
“The two groups are still very interested in a partnership but it will be in another field,” said Mr Löscher.
The Siemens chief executive said his company aimed to be at the forefront of Germany’s ambitious goal to generate 35 per cent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.
“The energy shift is the project of the century for Germans,” he said. “With 20 per cent renewable energy already, the country is on the right path.”