Germany's energy dream in danger

Inside a 160-metre-tall cooling tower at Germany’s biggest nuclear plant, the 2.6GW Gundremmingen in Bavaria

Inside a 160-metre-tall cooling tower at Germany’s biggest nuclear plant, the 2.6GW Gundremmingen in Bavaria

DPA/PA

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By Bernd Radowitz

 Monday, March 04 2013

A few days after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011, hundreds of thousands of angry citizens took to the streets — not in Japan, but all across Germany.

The meltdown 9,000km away tipped public opinion from a mere opposition to nuclear power towards a total refusal to tolerate it further.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, a canny politician, was swift to act — reversing a decision made just months earlier to extend the lifespan of Germany’s 17 nuclear power plants. Her centre-right government then decided to immediately shut down eight reactors and switch off the remaining nine between 2015 and 2022.

Merkel had effectively adopted the position taken by the Social Democrat-Green government in 2000 — to phase out nuclear power by the…

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