"BERLIN - Germany will pull the plug on its last three nuclear power stations by Saturday, ending a six-decade programme that spawned one of Europe's strongest protest movements but saw a brief reprieve due to the Ukraine war.
The smoking towers of Isar II, Emsland and Neckarwestheim II reactors were to shut forever by midnight on Saturday as Berlin enacts its plan for fully-renewable electricity generation by 2035.
Following years of prevaricating, Germany pledged to quit nuclear power definitively after Japan's 2011 Fukushima disaster sent radiation spewing into the air and terrifying the world.
But the final wind-down was delayed last summer to this year after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine prompted Germany to halt Russian fossil fuel imports. Prices soared and there were fears of energy shortages around the world - but now Germany is confident again about gas supplies and expansion of renewables."
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