The political backlash against nuclear power in Germany means power generation will rely more on coal-fired plants, Europe’s Energy Commissioner said on Monday. “There will be more coal power ... with consequences for CO2 emissions,” Guenther Oettinger, a former premier of Baden-Wuerttemberg state where Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives lost power on Sunday, told Reuters in Berlin. Nuclear power is carbon-free and more fossil fuels-based power supply would be needed to make up for shortfalls, should the conservatives shut more reactors in the wake of events in Japan, which German voters made clear they preferred.