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So Far So Good for Germany's Nuclear Phase-Out, Despite Dire Predictions [View all]
http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20121115/germany-energiewende-nuclear-energy-fukushima-chernobyl-merkel-renewables[font face=Serif][font size=5]So Far So Good for Germany's Nuclear Phase-Out, Despite Dire Predictions[/font]
[font size=4]Clean Break: Chapter 4 in the story of Germany's switch to renewables[/font]
By Osha Gray Davidson
Nov 16, 2012
[font size=3]Bonn, Germany—On the afternoon of April 29, 1986, West Germany's Interior Minister Friedrich Zimmermann walked out of a meeting with the Commission on Radiological Protection and spoke to a TV reporter.
"There is no danger," Zimmermann assured millions of anxious viewers. "Chernobyl is 2,000 kilometers away."
…
On May 30, Merkel held a press conference in the Chancellery. Flanked by members of her cabinet and wearing one of her trademark red power jackets, she announced that she was making the temporary closures permanent. What's more, she continued, the most industrialized nation in Europe, and the world's fourth-largest economy, would permanently close all nine of its remaining nuclear power plants by 2022.
…
There have been no blackouts since Merkel's announcement. On the contrary, Germany's grid, which was already the most reliable in Europe, experienced a total of just 15 minutes and 31 seconds of brownouts in 2011, an improvement over 2010. (The comparable figure for the United States is measured in hours.) The wholesale price of electricity has gone down, not up. The electricity-intensive German manufacturing sector is still thriving. And Germany finished 2011 as a net exporter of energy, while also cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2 percent.
…[/font][/font]
[font size=4]Clean Break: Chapter 4 in the story of Germany's switch to renewables[/font]
By Osha Gray Davidson
Nov 16, 2012
[font size=3]Bonn, Germany—On the afternoon of April 29, 1986, West Germany's Interior Minister Friedrich Zimmermann walked out of a meeting with the Commission on Radiological Protection and spoke to a TV reporter.
"There is no danger," Zimmermann assured millions of anxious viewers. "Chernobyl is 2,000 kilometers away."
…
On May 30, Merkel held a press conference in the Chancellery. Flanked by members of her cabinet and wearing one of her trademark red power jackets, she announced that she was making the temporary closures permanent. What's more, she continued, the most industrialized nation in Europe, and the world's fourth-largest economy, would permanently close all nine of its remaining nuclear power plants by 2022.
…
There have been no blackouts since Merkel's announcement. On the contrary, Germany's grid, which was already the most reliable in Europe, experienced a total of just 15 minutes and 31 seconds of brownouts in 2011, an improvement over 2010. (The comparable figure for the United States is measured in hours.) The wholesale price of electricity has gone down, not up. The electricity-intensive German manufacturing sector is still thriving. And Germany finished 2011 as a net exporter of energy, while also cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2 percent.
…[/font][/font]
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