Photo gallery Difficult Choices
Angela Merkel with German Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen (right) and energy executives at the construction site of a new coal-fired power plant in the city of Lünen in August. With her decision last week to possibly phase out nuclear energy in Germany sooner than previously expected, the chancellor faces a difficult choice: reducing CO2 emissions or avoiding the hazards of radiation.
Germany doesn't even have much of the infrastructure that will be needed to store and transport mass amounts of renewable energies, which are far less predictable than tradition fossil fuels or nuclear energy. Here, specialists are constructing the massive high-voltage power lines needed to create a supergrid. According to the German Energy Agency, up to 3,600 kilomters of additional 380,000-volt lines are needed in the coming years to maintain grid stability.
A gas and steam trubine plant in the town of Irsching in Bavaria. Many new facilities are needed, but locals tend to protest their construction. It is practical obstacles like this that will make it so difficult for Germany to quickly bid farewell to the atom.
