German Environmental Groups Step Up Pressure to Abandon Nuclear Power

Jan 05 - BBC Monitoring Europea

 Environmental organization Greenpeace has demanded to speed up the projected abandonment of nuclear energy. Greenpeace Managing Director Brigitte Behrens warned on Sunday [ 4 January] that nuclear energy was "the most dangerous and most irresponsible method to generate electricity." Nuclear power had therefore to be abandoned "considerably more quickly than currently planned." The Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union of Germany (NABU) criticized the recent proposals made by the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union to extend the operating lives of nuclear power plants.

In an interview with ddp, Behrens demanded that Germany should "disconnect the last nuclear reactor no later than 2015, rather than 2025." She stressed: "Some terrible accident like that in Chernobyl is possible any time." In addition, "the highly radioactive waste left behind by nuclear power generation must be stored for 10,000 years under absolutely safe conditions." The Greenpeace director emphasized: "No one knows where and how that can be done; there is not a single permanent disposal site in place to date."

Another risk was that no nuclear power plant was sufficiently protected against terrorist attacks. Behrens also rejected the claim that nuclear power would make it possible to fight climate change. That view was "simply wrong."

NABU energy expert Elmar Grusse-Ruse stressed: "Longer operating life cycles for nuclear power plants not only fail to promote climate protection, they even obstruct it." It had to be assumed "that nuclear power groups will reduce or even withdraw their investments in renewable energies at the very moment the extension of operating lives will be agreed." The reason is that the existing power grid had "no space" for additional electricity from renewable sources of energy on a lasting and reliable basis if electricity generated by nuclear power had to be taken in.

The energy expert added in an interview with ddp: "That would be the end to the extension plans for offshore wind farms." If the share of renewable energies was to climb to a minimum of 30 per cent until 2020, it was necessary to have "highly efficient and, above all, decentralized power plants that are in a position to respond flexibly to supply and demand in a region." That excluded large-scale nuclear power plants. They were associated with huge losses in primary energy and had to be "operated permanently, because they cannot be powered up and down at short notice."

From NABU's point of view, the "Stone Age technology nuclear power" was standing in the way of a future-compliant energy policy. In addition, "there is no prospect of being able to find a safe permanent disposal site for nuclear waste in Germany."

Originally published by ddp news agency, Berlin, in German 0709 4 Jan 09.

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