Germany keeps two nuclear reactors on standby to weather gas crisis

German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said in a statement on Monday that the move did not mean Berlin was reneging on its long-standing promise to exit nuclear energy by the end of 2022.

Habeck said a stress test by power grid operators had shown there could be hours of crisis in electricity supply over the winter given the tightness in the European energy market.

“That is why I believe the right consequence of the results of the stress test, is that we retain this option that at the end of the planned operating life of the nuclear power plants we put the two southern German nuclear power plants into a standby situation so that they could be used again or could continue to be used if the situation were to demand it,” Habeck said.

The move is especially hard to swallow for Habeck’s Greens, which grew out of the 1970s anti-nuclear movement, although the exit was initiated by former…