Germany’s Last Three Nuclear Powerplants Were Shuttered This Weekend

Photo caption: Nationalpark Berchtesgaden in Berchtesgadener Land, Bayern (Bavaria)
The three remaining nuclear power stations in Germany –in Emsland, in the northern state of Lower Saxony; the Isar 2 site in Bavaria; and Neckarwestheim, in Baden-Württemberg in the south-west – shut down on Saturday.
The move comes some 12 years after the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan, the most severe such incident since Chernobyl in 1986.  Fukushima accelerated Germany’s plans to end reliance on atomic energy.  The proximate cause of the disaster was the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami,  which remains the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan.
Prior to this weekend, Germany had decommissioned off 16 reactors since 2003.
The closures were a long-awaited victory for the country’s anti-nuclear movement.
The movement dates back to the early 1970s, when demonstrators there prevented the construction of a Kernkraftwerk or, alternatively, an Atomkraftwerk, in Whyl, in Emmindingen in Baden-Württenberg.
The Wyhl protests were an example of a successful grass roots effort including direct action and civil disobedience. It inspired nuclear opposition first throughout Germany, which then spread to other parts of Europe and then to North America.
On February 18, 1971, local residents spontaneously occupied the site, and police removed them using force two days later. Television coverage of police officers dragging farmers and their wives through the mud helped to turn nuclear power into a major national issue.
The land intended for the AKW in Wyhl eventually became a nature preserve.
Meanwhile, the movement led to the formation of Die Grünen, the Greens, in January 1980, with a platform focused on the environment and peace.
The country began to phase out its use of nuclear power over than two decades ago, but, in 2010, Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel announced an extension to the life of the country’s 17 nuclear plants until 2036.  That policy was swiftly reversed after Fukushima.
Meanwhile, across the Channel, the United Kingdom is actively pursuing a fresh push into nuclear powerplants.  In his budget speech in Parliament, Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt said that the country will spend £20 billion on carbon capture and low energy carbon projects and announced a competition to co-found small nuclear plants.  He also is moving towards classifying nuclear power as “environmentally sustainable.”
(Photo: Accura Media Group)