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Germany will be redirecting its economy towards renewable energy, because of the political decision to decommission its nuclear plants, triggered by the Fukushima event in Japan and subsequent public opposition to nuclear energy. Germany's decision would make achieving its 2020 CO2 emission reduction targets more difficult.   To achieve the CO2 emissions reduction targets and replace nuclear energy, renewable energy would need to scale up from 17% in 2010 to 57% of total electricity generation of 603 TWh in 2020, according to a study by The Breakthrough Institute. As electricity generation was 603 TWh in 2010, increased energy efficiency measures will be required to flat-line electricity production during the next 9 years.   Germany has 23 nuclear reactors (21.4 GW), 8 are permanently shut down (8.2 GW) and 15 (13.2 GW) will be shut down by 2022. Germany will be adding a net of 5 GW of coal plants, 5 GW of new CCGT plants and 1.4 GW of new biomass plants in future years. The CCGT plants will reduce the shortage of quick-ramping generation capacity for accommodating variable wind and solar energy to the grid.

Germany is planning a $14 billion build-out of transmission systems for onshore and future offshore wind energy in northern Germany and for augmented transmission with France for CO2-free hydro and nuclear energy imports to avoid any shortages.    Germany had fallen behind on transmission system construction in the north because of public opposition and is using the nuclear plant shutdown as leverage to reduce public opposition. Not only do people have to look at a multitude of 450-ft tall wind turbines, but also at thousands of 80 to 135 ft high steel structures and wires of the transmission facilities.   The $14 billion is just a minor down payment on the major grid reorganization required due to the decommissioning of the nuclear plants and the widely-dispersed build-outs of renewables. The exisitng grid is mostly large-central-plant based. 

This article includes the estimated capital costs of shutting down Germany's nuclear plants, reorganizing the grids of Germany and its neighbors, and building out renewables to replace the nuclear energy.    Germany’s Renewable Energy Act (EEG) in 2000, guarantees investors above-market fees for solar power for 20 years from the point of installation. In 2010, German investments in  renewables was about $41.2 billion, of which about $36.1 billion in 7,400 MW of solar systems ($4,878/kW). In 2010, German incentives for all renewables was about $17.9 billion, of which about half was for solar systems.   The average subsidy in 2010 was about ($9 billion x 1 euro/1.4 $)/12 TWh = 53.6 eurocents/kWh; no wonder solar energy is so popular in Germany. These subsidies are rolled into electric rates as fees or taxes, and will ultimately make Germany less competitive in world markets.   http://thebreakthrough.org/blog//2011/06/analysis_germanys_plan_to_phas-print.html http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-31/merkel-faces-achilles-heel-in-grids-to-unplug-german-nuclear.html http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/829664/revealed_how_your_country_compares_on_renewable_investment.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany  

The village of Feldheim 60km from Berlin has become an unusual tourist attraction. The village’s independent energy grid and 100% renewable energy sources has gained international attention. The village has its own energy grid and generates power from wind, biogas and solar. The model of Feldheim extinguishes the myth of needing nuclear or fossil fuel for baseload power and the assumption that big utility companies are required for electricity.

The transformation in Feldheim began in 1995 with a few wind turbines. Now the village has more wind turbines than homes. in 2008 the village added a biogas heat plant that runs off of corn waste and pig manure with a back up furnace that runs on lumber waste. In 2008 Feldheim decided they wanted their own energy grid. E,on refused to sell the existing grid to the city so they partnered with Energiequelle and built their own smart grid. Each villager paid in $3,972 for the grid installation but get a 31% savings on electricity and 10% savings on heat. It also created 30 permanent jobs for the town. Energiequelle is not building an electricity storage facility that will hold two days worth of electricity.

Feldheim did all of this while fighting the big utility companies and Germanies regulatory system that was not friendly to the drastic change Feldheim made.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's government insists that electricity bills will only grow modestly as a result of the nuclear energy phase-out. Experts, however, disagree, with many pointing to Berlin's massive subsidies for solar power as the culprit.

A pioneering spirit has taken hold in Germany, thanks to the government's radical reworking of the country's energy policies. Hardly a week goes by without the foundation being laid someplace in the country for a new solar farm, yet another biogas plant or an even bigger wind turbine. Fesseldorf, the town in northern Bavaria which just hosted Seehofer, will soon be home to one of the largest photovoltaic plants in the state.

The German government's plan calls for increasing the share of renewables in the country's energy mix to 35 percent by 2020. It is an ambitious goal in every respect. Not only will the current renewable energy share have to be doubled within a few years, the grid expanded and new power storage facilities installed. But Chancellor Angela Merkel's government is also somehow expecting the entire energy revolution to cost virtually nothing.

As a long time proponent of nuclear power, last week France announced that it will invest $1.4 billion in its nuclear energy program, diverging from contentious deliberation from neighboring states on nuclear energy policy after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan that damaged the Fukushima Daiichi plant in March. The President of France, Nicholas Sarkozy, issued a strong commitment announcing the energy funding package by declaring there is “no alternative to nuclear energy today.” With the capital used to fund fourth generation nuclear power plant technology, focusing research development in nuclear safety, the announcement validates many decades of energy infrastructure and legacy expansion. France currently operates the second largest nuclear fleet in the world with 58 reactors, responsible for supplying more than 74 percent of domestic electricity demand supplied to the world’s fifth largest economy last year. At the end of last month, French uranium producer, Areva Group (EPA:AREVA), and Katko announced plans to increase production to 4,000 tonnes of uranium next year.  Katco is a joint venture for Areva, the world’s largest builder of nuclear power plants, and Kazatomprom the national operator for uranium prospecting, exploration and production for Kazakhstan.

German closure The pronouncement to maintain the nuclear prominence in France provides a strong counterweight to other countries in the region. Germany recently announced the phased shutdown of its 17 nuclear power stations by 2022.  Last week, Germany’s federal parliament voted overwhelmingly to close its remaining nine active plants according to a preset 11 year schedule. A Federal Network Agency, which oversees German energy markets, will decide by the end of September whether one of the eight nuclear plants already closed in recent months should be kept ready on a “cold reserve” basis, to facilitate the transition for national energy supply. The German commitment to an energy policy transition indicates that the national power mix towards renewable sources will have to double from its present range of 17 percent to an ambitious 35 percent. Subsidies for hydro electric and geothermal energy will increase; however, financial support for biomass, solar, and wind energy will be reduced. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she would prefer for utility suppliers not to make up any electrical shortfalls after 2022 by obtaining nuclear power from neighboring countries like France. Germany will require an expansive supergrid to effectively distribute electricity from the north to growing industrial urban centers like Munich, in the south. In order to execute this plan the new laws call for the addition of some 3,600 kilometers of high capacity power lines. Germany’s strategy will partially include the expansion of wind turbines on the North Sea, enabling some 25,000 megawatts’ worth of new offshore wind power which will have to be developed by 2030. Nuclear persistence in the United Kingdom Last month, the government in the United Kingdom maintained its strong commitment to nuclear energy, confirming a series of potential locations for new nuclear builds.  The national policy statements on energy said renewables, nuclear and fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage “all have a part to play in delivering the United Kingdom’s decarbonisation objectives,” and confirmed eight sites around the country as suitable for building new nuclear stations by 2025. The statements, which are to be debated in Parliament, include a commitment for an additional 33,000 megawatts of renewable energy capacity, while the government said more than $160 billion will be required to replace around 25 percent of the country’s generating capacity, due to close by 2020. The Scottish government has also softened its tough opposition to nuclear power, following recognition by the energy minister of a “rational case” to extend operations at Scotland’s two nuclear plants. Additional Eurozone participation In June, Italian voters rejected a government proposal to reintroduce nuclear power. The plan by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to restart Italy’s nuclear energy program abandoned during the 1980s, was rejected by 94 percent of voters in the referendum. Another regional stakeholder, the Swiss government has decided not to replace the four nuclear power plants that supply about 40 percent of the country’s electricity. The last of Switzerland’s power nuclear plants is expected to end production by 2034, leaving time for the country to develop alternative power sources. Although the country is home to the oldest nuclear reactor presently in operation, the Swiss Energy Foundation has stated an objective to work for “an ecological, equitable and sustainable energy policy”. Its “2000 watt society” promotes energy solutions which employ renewable energy resources other than fossil fuels or nuclear power.

Japan Times reports on a “Citizens’ conference” on radiation here. This was a gathering of people not qualified in any way with the purpose of spreading fear. I am pleased to read about it, since it gives me another great occasion to link to Rod Adams’ essential “Atomic Insights” blog. One of the “experts” speaking at the conference cited the Yablokow report on Chernobyl. Anybody who wants to assess the credibility of said report needs to read the review of by M.I. Balonow of the Institute of Radiation Hygiene, St. Petersburg, published in full at Atomic Insights.

That review states that the Yablokow report is “science fiction rather than science”. I recall blogging about how this pamphlet managed to be included in a formerly respected Journal published by the New York Academy of Sciences without peer review. The conference also had one Sebastian Pflugbeil as a speaker. His Wikipedia page shows that he is famous as a former East German politician, with no publications in the relevant field of radiation protection. His qualification as “president of the German Society of Radiation Protection” is rather less impressive once you realize that anyone is free to found this kind of society and call it “German Society of Radiation Protection”. According to the German Wikipedia page, this “German Society” was founded in 1990 and has about 50 members. When asked about what dose rate would justify an evacuation in his opinion, Pflugbeil answered that he does not know, since he only is informed about the effects of radiation in Germany. That answer does not exactly inspire confidence that he knows what he is talking about.

Another conference involving citizens and scientists is planned for next year. I am looking forward already to the opportunity to point againt to the above review of the Yablokow science fiction.

The document's authenticity cannot be confirmed, but nuclear experts see no reason to doubt it. It also echoes fears in the nuclear industry about the safety of a secretive project to which few outsiders have had access. Iran is the only country with a nuclear plant that has not joined the Convention on Nuclear Safety, which obliges signatories to observe international safety standards. Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar. End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar. Sami Alfaraj, head of the Kuwait Centre for Strategic Studies and an adviser to the Kuwaiti government, said an accident at Bushehr would be a "total calamity for the world", in which nuclear contamination would spew across a wide region.He could not assess Bushehr's safety because Iran's co-operation with its neighbours had been "nil".

"They say trust us, but there's no such thing as trust us in nuclear politics. They are playing Russian roulette not just with us but with the world."Bushehr began in 1975 when the shah of Iran awarded the contract to Kraftwerk Union of Germany.When the German company pulled out after the 1979 Islamic revolution the two reactors were far from finished, and they were damaged during the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88.Airstrikes left the containment vessel with 1700 holes, letting in hundreds of tonnes of rainwater.

The regime revived the project in the 1990s, but with one reactor only. It wanted a prestige project to show that the Islamic Republic could match the scientific achievements of the West.It may also have wanted cover for its nuclear weapons program - and the opportunities for personal enrichment the project gave Iran's elite. This time, Iran used Russian engineers, who had not built a foreign reactor since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989. Russia's experts wanted to start from scratch. The Iranians, having already spent more than $US1 billion, insisted they built on the German foundations.This involved adapting a structure built for a vertical German reactor to take a horizontal Russian reactor - an unprecedented operation. Of the 80,000 pieces of German equipment, many were corroded or lacked manuals.

To whom does scientific debate belong? That was a central question raised by many of the 200-plus people who attended a citizens' forum in Tokyo on Oct. 12, as they criticized the ways in which the Japanese government and radiation specialists working for it are assessing and monitoring the health effects of the ongoing nuclear disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. The daylong conference, organized by the Japanese citizens' groups SAY-Peace Project and Citizens' Radioactivity Measuring Station (CRMS), featured experts who dispute much of the evidence on which the government has based its health and welfare decisions affecting residents of Fukushima Prefecture and beyond. Organizers of the event were also demanding that the government take into consideration the views of non-experts — and also experts with differing views from those of official bodies such as the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP). The Japanese government has constantly referred to the ICRP's recommendations in setting radiation exposure limits for Fukushima residents.

One of the driving forces for the citizens' forum was a desire to challenge the conduct and much of the content of a conference held Sept. 11-12 in Fukushima, titled the "International Expert Symposium in Fukushima — Radiation and Health Risk." That conference, sponsored by the Nippon Foundation, involved some 30 scientists from major institutions, including the ICRP, the World Health Organization, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. Although the proceedings were broadcast live on U-stream, the event itself was — unlike the Tokyo forum — closed to the public. Some citizens and citizens' groups claimed that this exclusion of many interested and involved parties — and the event's avowed aim of disseminating to the public "authoritative" information on the health effects of radiation exposure — ran counter to the pursuit of facilitating open and free exchanges among and between experts and citizens on the many contentious issues facing the nation and its people at this critical time.

In particular, there was widespread criticism after the Fukushima conference — which was organized by Shunichi Yamashita, the vice president of Fukushima Medical University and a "radiological health safety risk management advisor" for Fukushima prefectural government — that its participants assumed from the outset that radioactive contamination from the plant's wrecked nuclear reactors is minimal. Critics also claimed that the experts invited to the conference had turned a collective blind eye to research findings compiled by independent scientists in Europe in the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in present-day Ukraine — specifically to findings that point to various damaging health consequences of long-term exposure to low-level radiation. So it was that those two citizens' groups, angered by these and other official responses to the calamity, organized the Oct. 12 conference held at the National Olympics Memorial Youth Center in Shibuya Ward. Among the non-experts and experts invited to attend and exchange their views were people from a wide range of disciplines, including sociology, constitutional law and pediatrics. On the day, some of the speakers took issue with the stance of the majority of official bodies that the health damage from Chernobyl was observed only in a rise in the number of cases of thyroid cancers.

Dr. Sebastian Pflugbeil, the chairman of German Society of Radiation Protection had a lecture in Berlin,and talked about Tokyo. To the question about what we can do to minimize the damage of the accident, he answered: “Nothing. There is no way to stop the nuclear fuel that has melted-through leaking. All we could do is to pray for the fuel not to touch the underground water vein. We must avoid internal exposure from contaminated food. Authorities are trying to make Japanese eat polluted food for their twisted patriotism, but on the other hand, citizens are setting up independent labs around Japan. This is very important. However, lab facility costs are huge. Maintenance, recording the data costs too. Now, the best thing Germans can do is to support those independent facilities financially.”

To another question “How dangerous Tokyo is now?” He answered: “Tokyo is not the safe area. Now Tokyo is in the similar situation to Kiev in Chernobyl. Ukrainian Government couldn’t define that densely populated area, Kiev, as evacuating area so they did not admit Kiev was threatened and manipulated the radiation map to look like Plutonium stopped just before Kiev.” Around in Kiev, there were 11 million children in 1990, and now there are 8 million. However, the number of deformed babies is the same, which means the ratio of deformation is increasing. Low dose exposure obviously affects DNA. Only 10 % of babies sent to Kiev hospital can live longer than 1 year.

Nuclear Phase-Out Related articles, background features and opinions about this topic. Print E-Mail Feedback 07/13/2011   Phase-Out Hurdle Germany Could Restart Nuclear Plant to Plug Energy Gap dapd Germany might need to switch a nuclear power plant back on. Germany's energy agency is warning that one of the German reactors mothballed in the wake of Fukushima may have to be restarted to make up for possible power shortages this winter and next. Berlin is also   using money earmarked for energy efficiency to subsidize coal-fired power plants. For reasons of data protection and privacy, your IP address will only be stored if you are a registered user of Facebook and you are currently logged in to the service. For more detailed information, please click on the "i" symbol. Nuclear energy, as has become abundantly clear this year, has no future in Germany. For once the government, the parliament and the public all agree: Atomic reactors in the country will be history a decade from now. Before that can happen, however, the country has to find alternate power sources. In fact, amid concerns that supply shortages this winter could result in temporary blackouts, Germany's Federal Network Agency on Tuesday indicated that one of the seven reactors shut down in the immediate wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan could be restarted this winter to fill the gap . "The numbers that we currently have indicate that one of these nuclear energy plants will be needed," said agency head Matthias Kurth on Tuesday in Berlin. He said that ongoing analysis has indicated that fossil fuel-powered plants would not prove to be adequate as a backup.

Nuclear Phase-Out Related articles, background features and opinions about this topic. Print E-Mail Feedback 07/13/2011   Phase-Out Hurdle Germany Could Restart Nuclear Plant to Plug Energy Gap dapd Germany might need to switch a nuclear power plant back on. Germany's energy agency is warning that one of the German reactors mothballed in the wake of Fukushima may have to be restarted to make up for possible power shortages this winter and next. Berlin is also   using money earmarked for energy efficiency to subsidize coal-fired power plants. For reasons of data protection and privacy, your IP address will only be stored if you are a registered user of Facebook and you are currently logged in to the service. For more detailed information, please click on the "i" symbol. Nuclear energy, as has become abundantly clear this year, has no future in Germany. For once the government, the parliament and the public all agree: Atomic reactors in the country will be history a decade from now. Before that can happen, however, the country has to find alternate power sources. In fact, amid concerns that supply shortages this winter could result in temporary blackouts, Germany's Federal Network Agency on Tuesday indicated that one of the seven reactors shut down in the immediate wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan could be restarted this winter to fill the gap

Nuclear Phase-Out Related articles, background features and opinions about this topic. Print E-Mail Feedback 07/13/2011  Phase-Out Hurdle Germany Could Restart Nuclear Plant to Plug Energy Gap dapd Germany might need to switch a nuclear power plant back on. Germany's energy agency is warning that one of the German reactors mothballed in the wake of Fukushima may have to be restarted to make up for possible power shortages this winter and next. Berlin is also using money earmarked for energy efficiency to subsidize coal-fired power plants.

Future of Chernobyl health studies in doubt -Nature.com Radiation Spooks German Opera; 80 members refuse to go -The Concert Hotwire Radiation at Prague playground caused by small metal rod -Prague Monitor Hinkley Point To Be Targeted In Mass Blockade -Bristol, UK

German industrial and engineering conglomerate Siemens is to withdraw entirely from the nuclear industry. The move is a response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in March, chief executive Peter Loescher said. He told Spiegel magazine it was the firm's answer to "the clear positioning of German society and politics for a pullout from nuclear energy".

"The chapter for us is closed," he said, announcing that the firm will no longer build nuclear power stations. A long-planned joint venture with Russian nuclear firm Rosatom will also be cancelled, although Mr Loescher said he would still seek to work with their partner "in other fields". Siemens was responsible for building all 17 of Germany's existing nuclear power plants. But more recently, the firm has limited itself to providing the non-nuclear parts of plants being built by other firms, including current projects in China and Finland.

The latest decision appears to imply a step back from building "conventional islands" - the non-nuclear plant in nuclear power stations - an area in which Siemens has remained active.

out

Nuclear power was gaining a lot of momentum prior to the terrible disaster at Japan's Fukushima powerplant in March.

But since then, atomic energy has come under increased scrutiny and once again drawn the ire of environmentalists who were just warming up to its carbon-free emissions.

Because it appears on the websites of local Fox News stations, one instinctively takes an article titled Insider: Iran Will Be 'Next Chernobyl' with a grain of salt. But its plausibility is undeniable. See if you agree. The first Iranian nuclear power station is inherently unsafe and will probably cause a "tragic disaster for humankind," according to a document apparently written by an Iranian whistleblower. There is a "great likelihood" that the Bushehr reactor could generate the next nuclear catastrophe after Chernobyl or Fukushima, says the document. … It claims that Bushehr, which began operating last month after 35 years of intermittent construction, was built by "second-class engineers" who bolted together Russian and German technologies from different eras; that it sits in one of the world's most seismically active areas but could not withstand a major earthquake; and that it has "no serious training program" for staff or a contingency plan for accidents. The document's authenticity cannot be confirmed, but nuclear experts see no reason to doubt it.

More about the Russian-German incompatibility: "The Russian parts are designed to standards that are less stringent than the Germans' and they are being used out of context in a design where they are exposed to inappropriate stresses," the document says. It goes on to claim that "much of the necessary work for Bushehr is outside the competence of the Russian consulting engineers," who consider the project a "holiday."

What's ironic about this article is that Fox types no doubt view the shoddy-sounding state of Iran's nuclear-energy program as a force multiplier to add to Iran's alleged development of nuclear weapons. Operating in synergy, theoretically they should make the case for attacking Iran. To others though, Iran's possible nuclear-energy troubles eclipse the nuclear weapons threat. Thus is Iran reduced from malevolent to incompetent and not worth attacking. Given enough time, its nuclear program may well blow itself up. 

[Transcript Summary] At 6:15 in Chernobyl health effects are the biggest coverup in the history of medicine. WHO, IAEA, UN all covered up effects. At 7:20 in German gov’t study on children under 5 that lived within 5km of reactors showed double leukemia and high incidence of solid cancers… deformities (teratogenesis). The closer to reactor, the higher the malignancy. At 10:15 in Nuclear plants cannot prevent tritium (Radioactive hydrogen) from escaping… highly carcinogenic. It is probably what’s causing the cancers in the kids that live near power plants in Germany.

German police say they have cleared a sit-in of thousands of protesters attempting to block a shipment of nuclear waste and have detained 1,300 people. Police said hundreds of officers started evicting protesters from the rail lines near Dannenberg in the north of the country early Sunday. Those who refused to leave were detained and are being brought before judges later. Police put the number of protesters at 3,500 while protest organizers said 5,000 people had occupied the tracks that will be used to transport a nuclear waste shipment that has been reprocessed in France to a storage site near the town of Gorleben. Police say two groups of about 250 activists each are currently hurling stones and fireworks at officers. They say several officers were injured and at least 10 people detained.

Following up to our previous post “JP Gov officially admitted that Japanese food is harmful” Mr. Otsuka Norikazu turned out to have acute lymphatic leukemia. Since 311, he has been “supporting north Japan by eating their food”. The connection between his patriotism and acute lymphatic leukemia is not clear, but German TV introduces like this. German TV piece He declared that he will be back on TV by next March or April, but he has his neck connected to the tube, and they are injecting anticancer drug. Now he is 63 years old. Statistically, even though he goes though the hard time to fight against cancer, the chance of surviving is 30~40% in 5 years. All we could do is to wish him the best luck.

Reconsidering my support for nuclear energy I have found that it is only based in a desire to use it as a tool in the rather important fight against global warming and global meltdown. That in turn makes it possible to say “I hate nuclear energy. I just hate global warming more. So I support using it exactly until that problem is solved.” I said as much in my post yesterday with the nice title “Shut down those filthy nuclear reactors”.

So, what is there to hate about nuclear energy? Imagine you are a supporter of nuclear energy that is pushed by a silly reason like anger over being insulted by some random stranger on the Internet to actively look for anything that might be a problem with your former position. That is exactly what I have done. As a result, I have found basically two problems with it. One, which is the more important point, is the fact that the pro-nuclear position has lost in Germany, the only country where I actually have a vote. There is no German party I could vote for that supports building new nuclear reactors.

The victory of German anti-nuclear forces was quite decisive. That means as far as Germany is concerned, nuclear is just not a realistic option any more. Pro-nuclear advocacy is a waste of time, and a fringe minority position. Japan, the other country I might have some influence, is not quite as hopeless. Still advocating for a large increase in nuclear energy there does not seem a promising strategy.

Deregulate The AtomHistory of the Antinuclear Movement, Part 2b var addthis_product = 'wpp-258'; var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":false}; The different and more diffuse class composition of the European antinuclear movement found visible expression in the tactics of the activists and the police, which were much more belligerent than in America. In Europe, antinuclear protesters carried out acts of sabotage against power-lines, railroad lines, construction sites, factories supplying nuclear plants, and installations of utility companies including bombs placed near nuclear construction sites or plants. Marches and rallies attracting upward of 50,000 were commonplace. Police responded physically against demonstrators, using tear gas, clubs, dogs, even grenades, causing hundreds of injured and even death (as in the case of Malville). Civil war-like street blockades, dozens of miles away from the demonstration-sites and at national borders were set up to block demonstrators. Compared to the small showings and relatively peaceful actions in North America, the European state of affairs was much more dynamic. The movement against the nuclear plants was one of the biggest mass movements of the 1970s and 80s in Germany. After a slowdown since, it has reappeared now like a phoenix from the ashes, The Chernobyl disaster in 1986 was a pivotal event for Germany’s anti-nuclear movement, following the event, the Green Party strived for the immediate shut-down of all nuclear facilities. The SPD pushed for a nuclear phase-out within ten years. Länder governments, municipalities, parties and trade unions explored the question of whether the use of nuclear power technology was reasonable and sensible for the future.

May 1986 clashes between anti-nuclear protesters and West German police became common. More than 400 people were injured in mid-May at the site of a nuclear-waste reprocessing plant being built near Wackersdorf. Police used water cannons and dropped tear-gas grenades from helicopters to subdue protesters armed with slingshots, crowbars and Molotov cocktails. Starting from 1995, when the first transports of nuclear waste to Gorleben took place, there was a slow, but continuous new growth of resistance, with demonstrations and blockades of the railway. In 2002, the “Act on the structured phase-out of the utilization of nuclear energy for the commercial generation of electricity” took effect, following a drawn-out political debate and lengthy negotiations with nuclear power plant operators. The act legislated for the shut-down of all German nuclear plants by 2021