Anti-nuclear Movement in Germany

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The anti-nuclear movement in Germany has a long history dating back to the early 1970s, when large demonstrations prevented the construction of a nuclear plant at Wyhl. Anti-nuclear success at Wyhl inspired nuclear opposition throughout Germany, in other parts of Europe, and in North America.

Early years

The tiny hamlet of Wyhl, in the southwestern corner of Germany, was first mentioned in 1971 as a possible site for a nuclear power station. In the years that followed, local opposition steadily mounted, but this had little impact on politicians and planners. Official permission for the plant was granted and earthworks began on 17 February 1975.[1] On 18 February, local people spontaneously occupied the site and police removed them forcibly two days later. Television coverage of police dragging away farmers and their wives helped to turn nuclear power into a major national issue, with subsequent support coming particularly from the nearby university town of Freiburg. On 23 February about 30,000 people re-occupied the Wyhl site and plans to remove them were abandoned by the state government in view of the large number involved and potential for more adverse publicity. On 21 March 1975, an administrative court withdrew the construction licence for the plant.[2][3][4] The plant was never built and the land eventually became a nature reserve.[4]

The Wyhl occupation generated extensive national debate. This initially centred on the state government's handling of the affair and associated police behaviour, but interest in nuclear issues was also stimulated. The Wyhl experience encouraged the formation of citizen action groups near other planned nuclear sites.[2] Many other anti-nuclear groups formed elsewhere, in support of these local struggles, and some existing citizens' action groups widened their aims to include the nuclear issue. This is how the German anti-nuclear movement evolved.[2] Anti-nuclear success at Wyhl also inspired nuclear opposition in the rest of Europe and North America.[3][1]

Other protests

In 1976 and 1977, mass demonstrations took place at Kalkar, the site of Germany's first FBR, and at Brokdorf, north of Hamburg.[2] The circumstances at Brokdorf were similar to those at Wyhl, in that the behaviour of the police was again crucial:

The authorities had rushed through the licensing process, and police occupied the site hours before the first construction license was granted, in order to prevent a repetition of Wyhl. Demonstrators trying to enter the site a few days later got harsh treatment, and all this helped consolidate the population in opposition.[2]

In February 1977 the prime minister of Lower Saxony, Ernst Albrecht of the Christian Democratic Union, announced that the salt mines in Gorleben would be utilised to store radioactive waste. New protests by the local population and opponents of nuclear power broke out and approximately 20,000 people attended the first large demonstration in Gorleben on March 12, 1977. Protests about Gorleben continued for many years.[5]

In the early 1980s plans to build a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in the Bavarian town of Wackersdorf lead to major protests. In 1986, West German police were confronted by demonstrators armed with slingshots, crowbars and Molotov cocktails at the site of a nuclear reprocessing plant in Wackersdorf.[6][7] The plans for the plant were abandoned in 1988. It still isn't clear whether protests or plant economics led to the decision.[4]

In 1981, Germany's largest anti-nuclear demonstration took place to protest against the construction of the Brokdorf Nuclear Power Plant on the North Sea coast west of Hamburg. Some 100,000 people came face to face with 10,000 police officers. Twenty-one policemen were injured by demonstrators armed with gasoline bombs, sticks, stones and high-powered slingshots.[8][9][10] The plant began operations in October 1986 and is scheduled to close in 2018.[4]

Recent developments

The anti-nuclear protests were also a driving force of the green movement in Germany, from which the party The Greens evolved. When they first came to power in the Schröder administration of 1998 they achieved their major political goal for which they had fought for 20 years: abandoning nuclear energy in Germany.

In 2002, the "Act on the structured phase-out of the utilization of nuclear energy for the commercial generation of electricity" took effect, following a drawn-out political debate and lengthy negotiations with nuclear power plant operators. The act legislated for the shut-down of all German nuclear plants by 2021. The Stade Nuclear Power Plant was the first one to go offline in November 2003, followed by the Obrigheim Nuclear Power Plant in 2005. Block-A of the Biblis Nuclear Power Plant is still provisionally scheduled to be shut down in 2008.[4][11] Block-B is going back online after a year-long shutdown on December 13 or 14, 2007 and is scheduled to keep operating until 2009 or 2012.[12]

In 2007, amid concerns that Russian energy supplies to western Europe may not be reliable, conservative politicians, including Chancellor Angela Merkel and Economics Minister Michael Glos, continued to question the decision to phase out nuclear power in Germany.[4] WISE along with other anti-nuclear movement groups contend that the climate problem can only be solved by the use of renewable forms of energy along with efficient and economical energy technologies.[13]

In November 2008, a shipment of radioactive waste from German nuclear plants arrived at a storage site near Gorleben after being delayed by large protests from nuclear activists. More than 15,000 people took part in the protests which involved blocking trucks with sit-down demonstrations and blocking the route with tractors. The demonstrations were partly a response to conservative calls for a rethink of the planned phaseout of nuclear power stations.[14][15]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Nuclear Power
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Public Acceptance of New Technologies pp. 375-376.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Gottlieb, Robert (2005). Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement, Revised Edition, Island Press, USA, p. 237.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Nuclear Power in Germany: A Chronology
  5. ↑ The German Greens and the nuclear industry
  6. ↑ Energy and Now, the Political Fallout, Time, June 2 1986
  7. ↑ Germans Arrest 300 In Antinuclear Protests
  8. ↑ West Germans Clash at Site of A-Plant New York Times, March 1, 1981 p. 17.
  9. ↑ Nuclear Power in Germany: A Chronology
  10. ↑ Violence Mars West German Protest New York Times, March 1, 1981 p. 17
  11. ↑ UIC. Nuclear power in Germany.
  12. ↑ Reuters. UPDATE 1-Germany's RWE says Biblis B reactor is restarting.
  13. ↑ Nuclear Power Cannot Save the Climate
  14. ↑ Nuclear Waste Reaches German Storage Site Amid Fierce Protests
  15. ↑ Police break up German nuclear protest

Further reading

External links

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