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=> Germany Starts Historic Nuclear Shutdown

Germany Starts Historic Nuclear Shutdown
Posted by Eunuch (Guest) eunuch@attoz.com - Friday, November 14 2003, 16:40:22 (EST)
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I love it. I wish that the "solar and wind energy" lobby could do something like that in the US. The renewable energy economy would skyrocket. No wonder Germany is #1 in producing Photovoltaic Solar Panels!

My friend is studying abroad in Germany and she tells me that they are Recycle crazy. Is it really that hard?

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Germany Starts Historic Nuclear Shutdown

By STEPHEN GRAHAM, Associated Press Writer

STADE, Germany - Germany disconnected the first of its 19 nuclear power stations Friday, beginning an unprecedented phase-out that underscores differences between some European nations and the United States on securing future energy supplies.

Technicians at a 32-year-old nuclear plant at Stade near Hamburg switched it off forever at about 8:30 a.m.


Germany is the first major industrialized nation to renounce the technology. Under a deal negotiated after years of wrangling between the government and power company bosses, all Germany's nuclear reactors are to close by 2020.


The plant's closing sparked celebrations among the environmentalist Greens, the junior party in Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's government.


"The Stade nuclear power plant was an expensive dead end," Environment Minister Juergen Trittin said before Greens party colleagues at a champagne reception in a Berlin art museum. "Nuclear energy has no future in Germany."


Governments on both sides of the Atlantic are currently grappling with how to diversify their energy sources and reduce their reliance on crude oil from the Middle East.


But while President Bush (news - web sites) has sought to promote nuclear power and eyed untapped oil reserves in Alaska, many European nations are looking to gas and renewable sources such as wind and solar power.


The German phase-out deal, long-sought by the country's anti-nuclear lobby, imposes a limit of 32 years on the average operational life of nuclear plants, and bans reactor construction.


Nuclear power provides nearly one-third of Germany's electricity. The government argues that eliminating it will spur utilities to spend billions on new, cleaner-burning gas generators as well as wind turbines and solar panels.


Trittin claimed the longer operating life of reactors in countries such as the United States, which has over 100 licensed nuclear plants, was economically shortsighted.


"That doesn't secure supplies, it just blocks necessary investments (in non-nuclear energy sources)," he told German television.


In Europe, countries such as Sweden and the Netherlands have also begun phasing out their nuclear plants. Austria mothballed a planned reactor before it opened, and Italy and Denmark also have come out against nuclear power.


Not all European countries have joined the trend, though.


France relies heavily on nuclear energy — its 58 nuclear reactors provide more than three quarters of the country's electricity. Finland is planning to build a new nuclear plant, its second, and Soviet-designed plants are still key generators in several eastern European countries.


Some German observers say the slow pace of the phase-out means it could be reversed.


Opposition conservatives have pledged to scrap the anti-nuclear legislation should they return to power, a policy that has support of many industry leaders.


Walter Hohlefelder, the head of utility giant E.On, the Stade plant's operator, said its closure could prove to be "just an episode" in a more complicated story.

"We should keep the option of nuclear power open," Hohlefelder said.

Plans call for the 660-megawatt Stade plant to be torn down starting 2005, after spent nuclear fuel rods are removed and sent to France for reprocessing. Demolition work is expected to take up to 12 years.

Since Germany has no reprocessing plants, spent fuel from its power plants is sent to France and Britain for treatment. But the radioactive waste returns to Germany for storage, triggering regular protests by anti-nuclear activists.



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-- Eunuch (aka Jeff)

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