Siemens CEO: Shutting Down German Nuclear "Environmentally Unsound"

Klaus Kleinfeld, the CEO of Siemens AG, said yesterday that proceeding with the planned shutdown of Germany's nuclear power plants would be environmentally unsound. According to Kleinfeld, replacing Germany's nuclear generating stations with coal, oil and gas fired capacity would increase the country's emissions by 150 million tons annually.

But the best line from the AFX wire story was this one:

Kleinfeld added that is would be 'absurd' if Germany met part of its future energy needs by purchasing electricity generated by French nuclear power plants.

That gave me a little chuckle.