Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel affirmed through a spokesman Monday her support for nuclear power, despite an electrical fault that shut down one of Germany's 12 nuclear power stations two days earlier. A short-circuit knocked out the Kruemmel plant near Hamburg on Saturday. It had been under repair after its main transformer had caught fire two years ago.
With a general election less than 12 weeks away, Merkel, who was a physicist before entering politics, has been calling for existing nuclear plants to be kept in service for rather than be prematurely shut down.
"She does not doubt that the only plants operating are those of which the reliability and expert management are assured," said her deputy spokesman, Thomas Steg, in Berlin.
There are 17 nuclear reactors at 12 power plants in Germany, producing around a quarter of the nation's electricity. The Social Democrat-Greens government decided in 2000 to decommission the reactors by 2020.
Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who belongs to the Social Democratic Party and has stressed his differences with Merkel, called for Germany's gradual scrapping of nuclear power to be speeded up.
On ARD television, he said he would seek legislation after the September 27 election to rapidly close down Germany's oldest eight reactors.
He said earlier the fault at the Kruemmel site, which is run by the Swedish company Vattenfall, required "an examination of the electrical systems in all nuclear plants."
At Kruemmel, engineers were still studying why a short-circuit hit the repaired transformer system.
