No More Nuclear Power for Germany by 2022

Posted on Jun 30, 2011

Flickr / World Economic Forum

Chancellor Angela Merkel cited the ongoing disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant in turning Germany away from nuclear power.

German lawmakers voted to shut down all 17 of the country’s nuclear reactors over the next 11 years and pursue a renewable energy portfolio that would account for one-third of its energy resources. The vote marks a spectacular about-face on nuclear energy by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government.

After the recent disaster in Japan and news that the Tennessee Valley Authority is planning to build six “mini” nuclear reactors near a waterway in eastern Tennessee, it’s good to see the leaders of Europe’s largest economy taking the renewed, justified fear of nuclear power seriously. —ARK

The Guardian:

German MPs have overwhelmingly approved plans to shut down the country’s nuclear plants by 2022, putting Europe’s biggest economy on the road to an ambitious build-up of renewable energy.

The lower house of parliament voted 513-79 for the shutdown plan drawn up by Angela Merkel’s government after Japan’s post-tsunami nuclear disaster. Most of the opposition voted in favour.

... By 2020, Germany wants to double the share of energy stemming from water, wind, sun or biogas to at least 35%. Until this year, nuclear energy accounted for a little less than a quarter of Germany’s power.

Read more

More Below the Ad

New and Improved Comments

We are launching a major overhaul of our comments section.

In addition to more robust spam filtering and moderation, new features include the ability to rate other comments, sort how they are displayed and respond directly via e-mail or in a thread.

Unfortunately, commenters will lose their existing Truthdig identities. It's a pain, we know, but on the plus side you will now be able to log in with a plethora of options, including Google, Twitter, Facebook and Disqus accounts.

Before launching this system we spent months in discussion with our top commenters. We listened to the feedback and we hope you like what we've come up with.

Please direct any problems or concerns to us via our contact page.