Austria's energy companies conceal nuclear energy

The Greenpeace environmental organisation has published a study criticising Austrian energy companies for misleading their customers about the amount of electricity generated by nuclear power plants that comes out of their plugs. The liberal daily Der Standard is likewise critical: "If the companies have no option but to import electricity because they can't produce enough themselves to cover their customers' demand, they simply write UCTE [Union for the Co-ordination of Electricity Transmission] without pointing out to customers that of course 'nuclear' energy is in the mix, too. Or they work with certificates - all quite legally - to cover up the nuclear tracks in the power supply. Admittedly the whole thing is perfectly legal, but customers are being misled. And high-ranking politicians simply play along. The federal state and the provinces have majority stakes in the energy group and the new energy suppliers. You can't fulminate against [the nuclear power plant] Temelín while at the same time allowing 'grey' electricity to be whitewashed. This labelling scam must finally come to an end."

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