Italy Just Became The Latest Country To Abandon Nuclear Power

Ironically, the conservative Merkel government has proposed the exit policy implemented by the previous red-green government of Social Democrats and the Greens. Merkel's conservative party rose to power in part on a platform of extending the operation of the existing reactors. Her policy on extending the reactors operating lives was tabled shortly before the Fukushima accident. The policy reversal is historic not only in Germany, but worldwide.

Critics of the reversal have charged that:
Germany will suffer power outages
Germany will import nuclear power from other countries, notably France
Germany will build massive new coal plants to make up the shortfall

The analysis by the German environment agency was undertaken to specifically examine these questions. They concluded that Germany can close the reactors within five years and do so:
Without power outages
Without importing nuclear power from other countries
Without building new coal plants
With only a modest increase in the cost of electricity

...To the surprise of many critics of Germany's renewable energy program, the country is not a net importer of electricity. In recent years, Germany has been a net exporter of generation...