Political opposition to Germany continuing with nukes
Greens vow to oppose U-turn on German nuclear phaseout
The Local : 28 Sep 09
Green groups vowed on Monday to hit the streets if Chancellor Angela Merkel’s victorious new coalition keeps its campaign promise to reverse Germany’s scheduled exit from nuclear power. Continue reading
Solar subsidies at some risk in German election
Center-right coalition could slash solar subsidies
By Polya Lesova, MarketWatch 22 Sept 09
FRANKFURT (MarketWatch) — Though broad political support for renewable energy is certain to stay in place regardless of what government emerges after Sunday’s national election, a center-right coalition will likely push for bigger cuts to the state subsidies that have helped make Germany one of the global leaders in green energy. Continue reading
German Nuclear Plants’ Future Hangs On Election
German Nuclear Plants’ Future at Stake in Merkel Election Fight
By Brian Parkin and Nicholas Comfort Sept. 23 (Bloomberg) — Angela Seidler, a 41-year-old tour guide at E.ON AG’s Grafenrheinfeld nuclear-power plant in southern Germany, may have to find a new career before she retires. Continue reading
Germany OKs Huge Offshore Wind Farms
Germany OKs Huge Offshore Wind Farms
The German cabinet has approved a plan for 40 more North Sea and Baltic wind parks that could create 30,000 jobs and power 8 million homesSPIEGEL ONLINE September 21, 2009, Continue reading
Germany: Nuclear power an issue pre-election
Merkel, Steinmeier Clash on Jobs, Taxes in TV Debate
and Foreign MinisterBy Tony Czuczka and Brian Parkin Sept. 13 (Bloomberg) — Chancellor Angela MerkelFrank-Walter Steinmeier clashed on jobs, taxes and who can best steer Germany’s economy out of the crisis during their only television debate before Sept. 27 elections…………………. Continue reading
50,000 join anti-nuclear power march in Berlin
The Local 5 Sep 09
Some 50,000 anti-nuclear protestors demonstrated in Berlin on Saturday against Germany possibly reversing a decision to abandon atomic energy and extending the life of its nuclear power plants. Continue reading
Germany in nuclear turmoil before election
For Merkel, no clear way out of nuclear woes
PRESS TV 06 Sep 2009 Anti-nuclear sentiment in Germany escalates ahead of national election, with some 50,000 activists marching in Berlin to demand the shut down of the country’s 17 aging nuclear power plants. Continue reading
German customers are saying ‘No Thanks” to nuclear power
Many German customers are saying ‘No Thanks” to nuclear power
American German Business News Flavia Westerwelle 24 August 09
After the recent nuclear reactor shutdown at the Vattenfall Kruemmel nuclear plant near Hamburg, Germany, many German customers are preferring green energy.On July 4th, 2009 the Kruemmel nuclear plant near Hamburg had been running for less than two weeks after a two year shutdown, when a sudden drop of voltage send shopping centers and traffic lights in Germany’s second largest city into an hour long blackout.After this incident the green energy company Lichtblick saw a dramatic jump in customers, with ca. 200 new customers per day.
This corresponds to a 70 % increase in customers for Lichtblick, a Hamburg-based company providing energy from renewable sources, with a mix of hydro, wind, solar and biomass power.It looks like the recent series of problems at nuclear plants combined with the issue of storing the nuclear waste has trigger a process of rethinking by many German customers eager to find a long term solution for Germany’s energy needs.
Many German customers are saying ‘No Thanks” to nuclear power « American-German Business News
Germany’s nuclear waste problem shows long term danger for waste storage
Salting it Away (and Other Problems with Nuclear Waste)
Miller McCune By: Michael Scott Moore | July 29, 2009
Germany’s vaunted salt mine solution for low-level nuclear waste has proven to be full of holes……………………….
Around 12,000 liters of groundwater leak into the mine every day. Some of it mixes with the radioactive waste. A few weeks ago, the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) finally admitted that some brine collected in Asse II had traces of tritium and caesium 137.
But last year the German public learned that the group in charge of maintaining Asse II at the time had known about the accumulation of suspect water since 2005…………………….The public outrage led German politicians to take the mine out of the Helmholtz Institute’s hands and place it under the BfS. But Asse II has also leaked groundwater since at least 1988 — meaning, at the very least, that decades of Cold War research conducted there failed to solve some of the most basic problems of nuclear storage……………….Along with 120,000-odd barrels of radioactive slop, according to a report last year, highly radioactive plutonium waste and even a few spent fuel rods were dumped in the mine………….
It’s hubris for a government to think it can safely store nuclear waste beyond the lifetime of the government itself. The trouble with Asse II has been a chastening example. Political promises, stern-sounding policies, and even scientific assessments from 1989 (which said the mine had no leaks) all proved to be as full of holes as the mine itself.
Germany’s nuclear misadventures continue
PRESS TV 25 July 09
Technical problem at two more nuclear reactors in Germany have fuelled the anti-nuclear debate,…………………..The latest mishaps came less than three weeks after a fault at the Kruemmel reactor cuts power and water supplies to thousand of homes, breathing new life into the major campaign issue which has divided the country’s coalition government ahead of the September elections…..
…….a recent poll revealed more public opposition to atomic energy……………
…….Technical faults are not the only demons haunting the country’s nuclear issue.
Last week, a report by Germany’s Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) questioned the safety of a controversial nuclear waste dump facility in Asse, rating the salt-mine storage facility as one of the most unreliable nuclear waste dumps in use after officials found radioactive water leak.
Nuclear reactor shuts down after malfunction
Nuclear reactor shuts down after malfunction
The Local 24 Jul 09
One of Germany’s most modern nuclear power stations was shut down on Friday due to a technical fault, operator RWE said, less than three weeks after problems at another reactor hit the headlines.
The Emsland reactor in northwest Germany, which supplies around 3.5 million households, underwent an automatic shutdown at 3:00 am (0100 GMT), RWE said in a statement……………………In early July, the Krümmel reactor near Hamburg was shut down after problems – not long after it had been reopened following two years of repairs.This reignited the nuclear debate in Germany, which decided in 2000 under then chancellor Gerhard Schröder to mothball its 17 reactors by about 2020 amid strong public opposition to atomic energy.
The World from Berlin: Germany’s Radioactive Election Fever
Germany’s Radioactive Election Fever
SPIEGEL ONLINE Josh Ward 17 July 09 Two recent mishaps have provided an opportunity for anti-nuclear forces in Germany — and their flagbearer, Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel — to take the offensive. But some German commentators think that, in trying to win votes for his party, Gabriel might actually drive them into the arms of the Greens.German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel is taking advantage of two recent accidents related to the country’s nuclear energy industry to press home his — and most of the country’s — opposition to nuclear energy………………….……….The Krümmel nuclear power plant operated by the Swedish energy giant Vattenfall near Hamburg automatically shut down on July 4 after a fault in a transformer. And, on Tuesday, officials announced that the troubled Asse underground nuclear waste storage facility, a former salt mine, was having renewed problems with major water leakage………………….
……….According to a recent survey by the Forsa polling institute, almost two-thirds of Germans support the closing of the country’s remaining nuclear power plants.
The World from Berlin: Germany’s Radioactive Election Fever – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News – International
Nuclear power regulation becomes political minefield
Nuclear power regulation becomes political minefield
Deutsche Welle 13.07.2009
A short circuit that led to an automatic shutdown at the Kruemmel nuclear power plant in northern Germany sparked a debate over who should oversee nuclear power operations and how tight regulation should be.
The malfunction was the second such incident in several days at the plant in northern Germany, which had only just re-opened after two years of repairs following a malfunction in a transformer that had caused a fire and a shutdown.
Vattenfall, the power plant’s operator, has since said it failed to install an important safety sensor, and that all of Kruemmel’s 80,000 fuel rods had to be checked after some appeared to be defective.
Vattenfall sacks head of defective nuclear plant
Vattenfall sacks head of defective nuclear plant
Deutsche Welle 08.07.2009
Four days after a technical failure shut down a nuclear power station in northern Germany, operator Vattenfall admitted to having made a mistake, while Social Democrats and Green are urging a boycott.
Vattenfall admitted that a mistake had been made at the Kruemmel nuclear power station and confirmed that it had fired the plant manager. The Swedish operators said the head of the reactor had broken an agreement with German authorities to install discharge detectors on a transformer.
It was a short-circuit on one of the transformers that caused the Kruemmel plant to shut down last weekend, thus restricting power supplies across much of the city of Hamburg.
Vattenfall has now said it will not repair the electrical transformers, responsible for the supply of power to on-site machinery, but will replace them entirely. As a result, the reactor will not resume operations for several months.
The latest incident at Kruemmel, just one of many problems that have dogged the plant over the past years, has sparked furious political debate over the security of nuclear fuel technology.
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4464985,00.html
Inexplicable leukemias rock small German rural region
Inexplicable leukemias rock small German rural region Google News By Arnaud Bouvier – 7 July 09 GEESTHACHT, Germany (AFP) — For 20 years, children from a small rural northern German region — where Alfred Nobel invented dynamite — have been contracting leukemia at a higher rate than anywhere else in the world and no one knows exactly why.Nineteen cases of leukemia among children under 15 have been recorded since 1989 in the region of Elbmarsch, some 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the city of Hamburg, three or four times the average rate.”Such a high rate of leukemia is unique in the world,” according to Hayo Dieckmann, a health official in the nearby town of Lueneburg who is also a medical doctor…………………………………………..
Campaigners, however, point out that within two kilometres of the region lie the Kruemmel nuclear power station and the GKSS scientific research centre, both of which they believe are to blame for the leukemia outbreaks.
The “citizens’ association against leukemia in Elbmarsch” (BI) believes that a nuclear accident took place at the GKSS centre, only six months after the devastating meltdown at Chernobyl.
The campaigners say that a radiation leak occurred at the centre — which operates a small nuclear reactor for research purposes — on September 12, 1986, which was later covered up by the authorities……………………………
Campaigners also point an accusing finger at the Kruemmel nuclear power plant which reopened on June 24 after a fire broke out there two years ago.
The plant hit headlines again at the weekend in the wake of two further malfunctions, one of which plunged part of Hamburg into darkness and knocked out the city’s traffic lights.
At the end of 2007, a national survey of nuclear power stations in Germany showed that the risk of contracting cancer rose dramatically for children living near a power plant.
1 This Month
of the week – Shut Down Drone Warfare!
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
Petition to revoke the licensing of the Near Surface Nuclear Disposal Facility (NSDF) at Chalk River. https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-7247
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