False map shows Germany surrounded by nuclear power plants

Some of Germany's neighbours do have operable nuclear plants, but they don't line the borders as the map suggests.

Transcript

00:00A false map shows Germany surrounded by nuclear power plants.

00:08An old misleading map has resurfaced online showing Germany's borders lined with 30 nuclear

00:14power plants. The plants are spread across Germany's neighbours, including the Netherlands,

00:19Denmark and Poland, according to the map. It's been shared across social media platforms and

00:24captioned as showing what the German power grid will look like in the coming years.

00:28For example, this post on TikTok suggests that this is what Germany will look like in 2025,

00:33and this post on Facebook says that this will be the country's fate over the next 30 years.

00:38Comments on the post appear to be stoking the idea that Germany's neighbours will be

00:42way ahead in terms of nuclear energy production, while Berlin gets left behind.

00:47Of course, we can't predict the future, but we can see what the current state

00:50of Europe's nuclear plants is, and it's nothing like what the map depicts.

00:54This map from Nuclear Europe, a Brussels-based trade association for the nuclear energy industry,

01:00shows that there are some plants situated in Germany's neighbours,

01:03but it's not like they're lining the borders. In fact, many of the countries don't have

01:07any nuclear plants at all. It's worth noting that this map only shows plants in operation.

01:12According to recent figures from the World Nuclear Association,

01:16France has the most operable nuclear reactors in Europe, standing at 56.

01:21Russia comes next at 36, then Ukraine with 15, the UK with 9, and Spain with 7.

01:27Some of Germany's other neighbours do, of course, have operable nuclear reactors,

01:31such as Belgium and Switzerland, but not as many as the misleading map suggests.

01:35As for Germany itself, its last nuclear power plants were shut down in April 2023

01:41as part of its nuclear phase-out that was approved in 2011.

01:44For more, check out Euronews.com.