Siemens will continue to work in the power industry but drop out of
the nuclear sector
German industrial and
engineering conglomerate Siemens is to withdraw entirely from the
nuclear industry.
The move is a response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan
in March, chief executive Peter Loescher said.
He 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.
But 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 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.
U-turn
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.
The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, announced at the end of May
that all of the country's 17 nuclear reactors would be shut down by
2022.
Before the Fukushima disaster, nuclear power accounted for 23% of
electricity production in Germany.
The German government's decision marked a complete U-turn by the
chancellor, who only in September 2010 had announced that the life
of existing nuclear plants would be extended by an average of 12
years.
Siemen's move, announced on Sunday, is also a turnaround.
In 2009, the firm
withdrew from an eight-year-old nuclear joint venture with French
energy firm Areva, shortly before announcing its new deal with
Rosatom.
"In view of global climate change and the increasing power demand
worldwide, for us nuclear energy remains an essential part of a
sustainable energy mix," Mr Loescher had said at the time.
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