Police use water cannons against German anti nuclear protestors

Germany nuclear protesters clash with police, BBC News 24 November 2011 Police in northern Germany have used water cannons against demonstrators waiting for the arrival of a shipment of nuclear waste from France.
Scuffles broke out between police and protesters after fireworks and paint were thrown at officers. Protesters had tried to block a crossroads at Metzingen, near the shipment’s destination. French authorities have stopped the train in Remilly, short of the border.
Some reports quoted authorities as saying it would wait for 24 hours to avoid more mass protests, ….. The train had left Areva’s nuclear fuel reprocessing facility in Normandy on Wednesday after a scuffle between police in riot gear and several hundred protesters who tried to occupy the train tracks near the town of Valognes…..
It is the first waste shipment to Germany since Berlin decided to shut all its nuclear plants by 2022, following Japan’s nuclear disaster caused by the earthquake and tsunami in March.
The train was the last of 12 shipments of treated German nuclear waste sent in recent years from France. The contract between Areva and German nuclear power producers has expired and is not expected to be renewed, as Germany has voted against the transportation of radioactive nuclear fuel.
The train is carrying 11 tubular containers of highly radioactive nuclear waste, that are due to be stored in Gorleben in northeast Germany. But officials have not resolved where waste should be stored permanently and opponents argue that the Gorleben site is unsafe.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15883782
Small is economic, as well as beautiful – renewable energy developments
And will the rest of Europe follow? The poll-leading Socialists in France, after all, are talking of halving the country’s nuclear capacity. “Most of the world will follow this way, but it will be slow,” Dudenhauser says. “Everyone expected blackouts after the nuclear shutdown, but it didn’t happen. But it would not be manageable if everyone goes Germany’s way in the next two years.”

Size not a factor in German power play , Climate Spectator, GilesParkinson, 24 Nov 11 It seems strange that the world’s most cautious and best performing economy should be acting as some sort of crash test dummy for the world’s clean energy future. But this is exactly the position that Germany finds itself in following its commitment earlier this year to abandon nuclear energy and to push towards its vision of a fully renewable power supply by 2050.
And if this is the future, then companies that have based their models around the principal of centralised power stations may find little cause for comfort. But it is presenting enormous opportunities for those focused on the concept of distributed generation, particularly fuel cells – at least that’s the take of Roman Dudenhausen, the CEO and co-founder of German energy consultants ConEnergy, and a recently appointed director to the board of Australia’s Ceramic Fuels Cells.
Dudenhausen says the accelerated phase-out of Germany’s nuclear capacity is presenting companies such as Ceramic with a unique opportunity…… Read more »
Germany putting serious money into renewable energy
Germany sets aside $130 billion for renewable energy, Online Opinion, By John Daly -, 24 October 2011 German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced on 30 May that Germany, the world’s fourth-largest economy and Europe’s biggest, would shutter all of its 17 nuclear power plants between 2015 and 2022, an extraordinary commitment, given that they currently produce about 28 percent of the country’s electricity.
Underlining the government’s seriousness in changing the country’s energy matrix, Germany’s Kreditanstalt fur Wiederaufbau (German Development Bank) is to underwrite renewable energy and energy efficiency investments in Germany with $137.3 billion over the next five years, Germany Trade and Invest reported. Overall, the German government’s 6th Energy Research Program has made an extraordinary $274.6 billion available for joint funding initiatives in energy storage research over the next three years. Read more »
Solar feed in tariffs working for Germany, Japan, China
Feed in Tariffs: Investing in a Renewable Energy Future, Policy Shop, 16 Oct 11 Mijin Cha Clean energy skeptics have seized on the failure of Solyndra to argue that scaling up renewable sources is a pipe dream.
They should visit Germany.
In the first quarter of 2011, Germany’s renewable energy output accounted for 19.2 percent of its total electricity consumption. Germany installed more solar PV in 2010 than the whole rest of the world and is well on its way to meeting the target of 35 percent of its electricity coming from renewables by 2020. And, in 2010, almost 370,000 people were employed in the renewable energy sector.
So how does Germany gets lots of clean energy and green jobs?
The key to this success is an incentive called a feed-in-tariff. Read more »
Support of government and the people points to success for Germany’s nuclear phaseout
Germany will be able to make the nuclear phase-out without any serious risks, as 80% of the people back up the government and even themselves massively invest in renewable energies. At the same time the economy profits from 100,000 new jobs and enterprising tasks.
“Germany’s Nuclear Phase-out Will Be Successful and Without Serious Risks” The Energy Collective, 6 Oct 11, Germany has made one of the most radical policy changes in the wake of Fukushima. Like Japan, it decided to phase out nuclear power by 2022. Furthermore, by the middle of the century, fossil fuels shall only play a minor role in the energy supply of the country….
How can Germany succeed in phasing out nuclear energy while also decarbonising its energy supply? Read more »
Giant industrial company Siemens abandons nuclear energy, favors renewables
Siemens to quit nuclear industry BBC News, 19 Sept,11, German industrial and engineering conglomerate Siemens is to withdraw entirely from the nuclear industry… chief executive Peter Loescher said, announcing that the firm will no longer build nuclear power stations. ”The chapter for us is closed,”
Germany’s competitive advantage with 21st Century energy technology
closure of Germany’s NNP installations, previously scheduled to be shuttered as late as 2036, would give Germany a competitive advantage in the development of renewable energy,
Germany’s renewable energy sources surge after Fukushima crisis, ARAB NEWS, By JOHN C. K. DALY, Sep 9, 2011 The worldwide implications for nuclear power advocates in light of the 11 March disaster at Japan’s Daichi Fukushima nuclear complex, battered first by an earthquake and a subsequent tsunami, are slowly unfolding.
Nations committed to nuclear power are being subjected to a relentless PR barrage by nuclear construction firms, who stand to lose billions if current contracts are suspended or, even worse, canceled. Read more »
Germany and UK selling out from uranium enrichment company
German Paper: RWE and E.ON Consider Urenco Sale, Nuclear Street, Sep 8 2011 Reports indicate two German utilities are preparing to sell their stake in Urenco, a uranium enrichment company that recently opened a new centrifuge plant in New Mexico.
Urenco’s other owners include the governments of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. In recent years, the UK also has indicated it wants to sell its 33 percent stake in the company. ….
Germany’s renewable technologies showing their value
Germany proves the promise of renewable energy: hits 20 percent renewables, By Karimeh Moukaddem, mongabay.com September 06, 2011A s many people in the United States question whether renewable energy is a viable alternative to fossil fuels, Germany now derives 20.8 percent of its electricity from renewable sources—a 15 percent increase since 2000, reports Der Spiegel. In contrast, the United States generates only 10 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, 6 percent of which comes from hydroelectric power, which some environmentalists see as unacceptably damaging. Read more »
Germany’s renewable energy use increases to 20%

Green Energy Use in Germany Passes 20 Percent of Total Power Mix Environmental News Network, 4 Sept 11, During the first half of 2011, Germany for the first time generated more than 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, a new report says. While the country’s total electricity demand remained stable during the first six months of 2011, the share generated by renewable sources increased from 18.3 percent to 20.8 percent, according to the German Association of Energy and Water Industries.
hat increase provides a boost to government initiatives to produce 35 percent of the country’s electricity from renewable energy sources by 2020, while phasing out all of the nation’s nuclear reactors, an aggressive target announced after the Fukushima disaster in Japan.
Alternative Energy and Fuel News: Green Energy Use in Germany Passes 20 Percent of Total Power Mix
Germany’s nuclear reactors to remain closed
Nuclear reactor not to be kept on stand-by, The Local 31 Aug 11 Germany’s Federal Network Agency has decided not to keep any nuclear power stations operational as back-up in case of electricity shortfalls this winter. Eight reactors were shut down earlier this year after the Fukushima disaster in Japan reignited German fears. Read more »
100% renewable energy to run Germany’s railways
Germany’s road to a 100% renewable railway, Nuclear power was once a go-to source for keeping German trains on the go. Fukushima changed that. In response to Japan’s nuclear disaster, Germany decided to put the brakes on its nuclear plants by 2020. Now, Deutsche Bahn, the country’s biggest electricity consumer, is looking elsewhere. Smart PLanet, By Melissa Mahony | August 24, 2011
The national railway operator plans to switch over entirely to renewable energy by 2050. Read more »
15 years later -work still continuing on getting rid of nuclear reactor
Visitors allowed into the decontamination workshop at Lubmin must wear radioactivity detectors and change into special protective clothing.
Working from inside containers, equipped with portholes, employees use high-pressure water, abrasive dust jets and acid baths to decontaminate the rooms one at a time.
“Don’t think radioactivity just disappears. It stays there as ground dust which has to be disposed of,” says Uwe Kopp, in charge of one of the workshops…..
Contaminated material from the plant is held in dozen of containers and barrels, awaiting a final government decision on a site for long-term storage.
Renewable energy development – the rational German example
Oh, the beauty of a system that is easy to understand and predictable……
Germany Shows How Renewable Energy Should Be Done, Daily Finance, ByTravis Hoium, The Motley Fool 08/01/11 Germany is doubling its efforts to be a renewable-energy power over the next 50 years, and it’s expanding beyond just solar power. After the country put thekibosh on exploding solar installationsby cutting feed-in tariffs (FIT), it has increased the FIT for biomass, geothermal, and offshore wind while simplifying solar rates. The wet blanketcurrently covering the German nuclear industrymeant the country needed to find a way to push renewable-energy installations to meet national renewable-energy goals before plants began closing. Read more »
Germany’s strategic approach to renewable energy and energy efficiency
This package of proposals forms the basis for Germany’s confidence that it can phase out one source of energy and phase in renewable energy and energy efficiency. The combination of a mix of policies (emissions trading, standards, regulations, incentives) with planning and investments in the longer-term infrastructure is the pathway Germany has chosen.
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How Germany plans to succeed in a nuclear free, low-carbon economy, | guardian.co.uk, 29 July 11, Germany plans to meet ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets while it phases out nuclear power Germany has taken some fundamental energy decisions in recent months, ones that are interesting for other countries to study and learn from. The most “famous” decision recently has been to phase out nuclear power in the next ten years. This move builds on years of debate and a societal decision after Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident to move away from nuclear energy.
There has been much less focus, however, on the phasing in of other sources of energy. Nor has there been much focus on how Germany can remain the economic powerhouse of Europe, and the world’s second largest exporting country, while removing a significant source of energy from its grid.
This phase-in story is vital to understand, especially taking into account that Germany plans to meet ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets while it phases out nuclear power. So, how will this work?……. Read more »
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