German Chancellor Olaf Scholz categorically ruled out building any new nuclear power plants in comments on Friday, despite calls by lawmakers for a change of policy.
People who are calling for new nuclear power stations are forgetting that it takes 15 years to build a new plant and costs €15 billion to €20 billion ($16 billion to $21 billion).
They would be complete "somehow at the end of the 30s with electricity prices that are double to triple what we have to pay with renewable energies, which we have long since expanded across the board," Scholz said at a party election campaign event in Munich in the state of Bavaria.
Bavarian voters go to the polls on October 8 to elect a new state government.
Electricity prices are soaring in Germany, in a development that followed the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when Berlin hastily sought to find alternatives to cheap Russian power sources. Moscow dialled down the provision of gas, leading governments throughout Europe to compete for other sources.
The opposition Christian Democrats, the far-right Alternative for Germany and also the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), a coalition member, have all called for extending the use of nuclear energy.
Lawmakers have spoken out in favour of allowing aging nuclear reactors to run, despite the fact that Germany phased out the use of nuclear power and shut down its last reactors earlier this year. Bavaria's state premier Markus Söder has said he wants to build a new reactor in Bavaria for research into nuclear fusion.
