In view of rising energy prices, a survey shows that a majority of Germans are in favor of extending the life of nuclear power plants. In a representative survey by the opinion research institute Insa for the “Bild” newspaper on Wednesday, 50 percent of those questioned stated that they considered a return to electricity generation using nuclear power plants to be sensible in view of the current energy crisis. A good third (35 percent), on the other hand, did not want this.
However, the construction of new nuclear power plants did not find a majority. 53 percent of respondents spoke out against it. A third (33 percent) were in favour. 13 percent were undecided or gave no answer.
In Germany, the last three nuclear power plants are scheduled to go offline at the turn of the year. At the turn of the year, the Brokdorf, Grohnde and Gundremmingen nuclear power plants had already been shut down. Since then, only the Isar 2, Emsland and Neckarwestheim 2 piles have been supplying electricity.
According to the survey, the majority of voters from the SPD (49 percent) and the Greens (63 percent) are against a return to nuclear energy. All other groups of voters, on the other hand, said the majority said they thought this would make sense.
Also, an absolute majority of 53 percent of those surveyed said they were not afraid of generating energy from nuclear power plants. On the other hand, 38 percent stated that they were afraid of it. Nine percent did not know or did not want to give any information.
The attitude towards the decision to phase out nuclear power in 2011 is somewhat contradictory. The absolute majority of 56 percent of those surveyed believe that the decision by then Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) after the reactor accident in Fukushima to phase out nuclear energy was the right one. 30 percent found this wrong. 15 percent did not want to position themselves. For the survey, Insa interviewed 1001 representative selected participants online on Tuesday.
