German Talks on Nuclear Power Withdrawal to Miss March Deadline

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

German Talks on Nuclear Power Withdrawal to Miss Mar. Deadline

Berlin, Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Talks between German legislators 
and utilities on closing the country's 19 nuclear power plants will 
likely stretch beyond the end of the month, missing a deadline for 
the third time, the government said. 

Germany plans to legislate to force Veba AG and others to shut 
down their reactors if agreement isn't reached soon. The 
Environment Ministry said confidential talks will continue this week 
and it expects to know whether a compromise is possible before 
March 17 when the Green Party, the junior partner in Germany's 
ruling coalition, holds its party congress. 

``In my view, there's no reason to force a sensible negotiating 
process to break off,'' German Economics Minister Werner Mueller 
told reporters today. 

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's ruling coalition of Social 
Democrats and environmentalist Greens agreed more than a year 
ago to begin talks with power companies, including RWE AG and 
Viag AG, on closing the country's nuclear reactors. 

Any agreement must be acceptable to the Greens, who are likely 
to vote on the issue at their congress, Environment Ministry 
spokesman Michael Schroeren said. Environment Minister Juergen 
Trittin is one of three Green Party cabinet ministers. 

At the beginning of this month Schroeder met chief executives of 
the four biggest utilities, resuming talks that broke down last year. 
After the talks ended, Schroeder said the government will legislate 
if agreement isn't reached by March. 

Complex Talks 

``Talks could now last into March,'' a government spokeswoman 
said today, adding that the issue is ``extremely complex'' and the 
government is ``unable to name a concrete deadline'' for 
agreement. Participants in this week's talks agreed they won't 
reveal any details to the press. 

The main sticking point is a dispute over how far to limit plants' 
operating lives. Utilities say they see little room for compromise if 
the government insists they limit operating lives to 30 years. They 
want plants to remain open for 35 years and have said they would 
fight government legislation in court. 

In an effort to broker a compromise, the government has said 
utilities could divide between them the amount of energy each 
nuclear plant produces in 30 years, so that some older reactors 
can be switched off sooner than other, more modern, ones. 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sandy Perle					Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100   				    	
Director, Technical				Extension 2306 				     	
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Personal Website:  http://www.geocities.com/scperle
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