Germany To Shut Down Nuclear Plants

A few years ago the German government set a date of 2021 to shut down all their nuclear plants, but when the conservative Merkel government came to power they shoved that date back by an average of 12 years per plant. But the ongoing nuclear problems in Japan has made the Merkel government re-think that decision. They now say that all 17 of Germany's nuclear plants will be closed down by the year 2022.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has a Ph.D. in physics, said Japan's helplessness in the face of the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant has caused them to realize that nuclear energy was just too dangerous. If a technologically-advanced country like Japan can't control the nuclear plant after a natural disaster, then the chances are that no other country would be able to do it either.

Matthias Kleiner, the head of a government commission on nuclear power ethics, said, "Fukushima was a dramatic experience, seeing there that a high-technology nation can't cope with such a catastrophe. Nuclear power is a technology with too many inherent risks to inflict it on us or our children."

Seven of the German nuclear plants were closed for safety checks after the Japanese disaster. The government now says they will not be re-opened. The remaining 10 nuclear plants will go off-line by 2022. When the seven plants were open, Germany got about a quarter of its energy from nuclear reactors (about the same as the United States). They are now going to move faster toward renewable energy sources, believing this will not only be safer but also create new jobs for the country (where the renewable energy industry already employs 370,000 people).

Merkel went on to say, "We believe we can show those countries who decide to abandon nuclear power - or not to start using it - how it is possible to achieve growth, creating jobs and economic prosperity while shifting the energy supply toward renewable energies. . .We don't only want to renounce nuclear energy by 2022, we also want to reduce our CO2 emissions by 40 percent and double our share of renewable energies, from about 17 percent today to then about 35 percent."

Germany will be helped toward this goal by new building codes they have mandated in the last few years. These new codes will save about 70% to 90% in a new buildings energy use for heating and cooling. As more of these energy-efficient buildings are built (and older buildings are demolished) less energy will be needed. This won't happen overnight, but the long-term effect will be substantial.

The United States could do the same thing Germany is doing, but it won't. The oil and coal industries have too much power in Congress. And so far, stricter building codes are not even being seriously discussed in this country. This country is stuck in the old conservative philosophy that all change is bad, and that the solution to any problem is to do more of the same thing being done now -- the "drill, baby, drill" mentality.

If we were smart we would mandate much higher mileages for autos, demand much stricter construction codes for all buildings (even a 50% saving in energy could be massive and is easily doable), make a huge investment in renewable energy development, and put stricter regulations on coal-fired energy plants. This would not only lead us to a more sensible and maintainable energy policy, but it would also help combat global climate change (the drastic results of which we are already starting to see).

But that would require reason, logic, and commonsense planning for the future. And those things are in very short supply in America right now. We're much more concerned about corporate profits. Meanwhile Germany is marching toward a sensible energy policy, a cleaner and safer environment, the creation of new jobs, and good corporate profits -- and they're doing it with a conservative government. Why do America's conservatives remain stuck in the 20th century?