![]() In the wake of the nuclear catastrophe in Fukushima, Japan, on 11 March 2011, the same Merkel government decided on 14/15 March to suspend the 2010 lifetime-extension for a three-month period, and then to mothball Germany's seven oldest reactors for the same period (known as the nuclear moratorium). Some 40,000 people went to the streets in Berlin, to protest against this decision in autumn 2010. This became known as the “phase-out of the (nuclear) phase-out” (Ausstieg aus dem Ausstieg). When the CDU/ CSU won the elections in 2009 and formed a coalition with the Free Democrats ( FDP), they extended the operating time by eight years for seven nuclear plants and 14 years for the remaining ten. The opposition Christian Democratic Union ( CDU) and its chairwoman, Angela Merkel, objected to the agreement, calling it a “destruction of national property” that would be revoked if the CDU came to power. Two plants (Stade and Obrigheim) were taken offline in 20. The agreement became law in 2002 (Atomgesetz). New nuclear power plants were banned altogether. But in theory, the last one would have had to close in 2022. Because nuclear power generation can vary, the plan did not set an exact date for the complete phase-out. The plan allocated each plant an amount of electricity that it could produce before it had to be shut down. They agreed to limit the lifespan of nuclear power stations to 32 years. Nuclear phase-out – opting out and back in againĪfter the Social Democrats ( SPD) and the Green Party won the elections in 1998, the government of Gerhard Schroeder ( SPD) reached what became known as the “nuclear consensus” with the big utilities (in 2000). Gorleben and Schacht Konrad, Lower Saxony). Public protests continued in the 1990s, mostly against the transport of spent nuclear fuel elements to and from waste processing facilities and prospective waste storage sites (e.g. Most politicians began to stress that nuclear was a “transient” technology but not the future, and after 1989 no new commercial nuclear power stations were built. A majority of Germans were concerned about the risks of the technology. The nuclear catastrophe in Chernobyl (in today’s Ukraine) in April 1986 caused widespread fear of nuclear power and strengthened the anti-nuclear sentiment. The anti-nuclear movement was one of the key driving factors behind the foundation of the Green Party (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) in 1980. More protests followed wherever locations for radioactive waste processing and storage were considered. nuclear power plant Three Mile Island in 1979, around 200,000 people took to the streets in Hannover and Bonn, demonstrating against the use of nuclear power. In 1975, 28,000 protesters occupied the construction site of a nuclear power plant in Wyhl (in the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg) and managed to stop construction. ![]() Rallies and legal challenges against individual projects were supported locally across party lines. What many international observers have portrayed as a panic reaction following the Fukushima-disaster in 2011 actually has a long history and is deeply rooted in German society.Īnti-nuclear movements started in Germany in the 1970s when local initiatives organised protests against plans to build nuclear power stations. ![]() Germany has set itself a dual goal with its energy transition, or Energiewende: The country wants to move from fossil fuel-based energy generation to a largely carbon-free energy sector while also phasing out nuclear energy by 2023. This factsheet provides the background on Germany’s decision to phase out nuclear energy. The country is pursuing the target of filling the gap with renewable energy. ![]() In 2020 the share was down to 11.4 percent, and by 2023 all nuclear plants are going to be shut down. A contradictory approach? Germany wants to curb greenhouse gas emissions but at the same time will shut down all of its nuclear power stations, which in the year 2000 had a 29.5 per cent share of the power generation mix. ![]()
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