nuclear-news

Germany’s peak utility organisation calls for swift end to nuclear power

The group called on the government to set everything in motion to speed up the transition toward a stable, ecologically responsible and affordable energy mix without nuclear energy.

Association of German utility companies calls for abolishing nuclear power by 2020, The Washington Post, 9 April 11,  BERLIN — Germany’s utility companies want “swift and complete” abolishment of nuclear power in the wake of the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima reactors, says their umbrella organization. The technology should be phased out by 2020 or at the latest by 2023, the German Association of Energy and Water Industries, BDEW, said Friday following a board meeting.

Up until today the organization had been fully behind nuclear energy, but the events in Japan caused the dramatic U-turn.

The group called on the government to set everything in motion to speed up the transition toward a stable, ecologically responsible and affordable energy mix without nuclear energy.

“The catastrophe at the Fukushima reactors marks a new era and the BDEW therefore calls for a swift and complete exit from using nuclear power,” the group said in a statement.

The association represents about 1,800 utilities, among them the operators of the country’s 17 nuclear reactors…….

Merkel has since vowed to speed up phasing out nuclear power, gradually supplanting it with other sources.

Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, stands alone among the world’s leading industrialized nations in its determination to overcome nuclear power.

The technology has been very unpopular in the country ever since radioactivity from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster drifted across the country….

Association of German utility companies calls for abolishing nuclear power by 2020 – The Washington Post

April 9, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, Germany