FROschTOsch

by Rudi Floren (BvA)

Recently, German politicians decided to shut down all nuclear power plants until 2022. 7 of our oldest reactors are brought down now. The rest will follow between 2015 and 2022.

The whole story started as the dramatic catastrophe in Japan happened. Many German activists saw new ways to enforce their sakes. The problem was, no-one knew how the hole in the Germans’ energy need should be filled. The first answer was: renewable energies.

But how? To fill the hole we have to invest a lot of money to build wind or water turbines. Or rather solar pannels? All these techniques are not yet as efficient as nuclear power.

The other problem is that the more effective off-shore wind turbines are only buildable in the north of Germany. But the energy network is not  extended enough from the north of Germany to the south. We have to build 3600 km of new power lines. This is very expensive.

A new problem is that these power lines don’t pop up out of the ground in one second. It is a process. As long as we don’t upgrade the equipment we are dependent on energy from our neighbours.

But is that the solution?
France produces a lot more energy by nuclear power. Some reactors are placed near our border, in the middle of an earthquake region.

And Romania has built a new nuclear power plant …… yes, .. in the middle of an earthquake region.
Some of the German nuclear power plants were safer than those earthquake endangered reactors!!!

It is a vicious circle. We want to get rid of nuclear power because of its risks, but now the risk is – in some ways in the next years – higher than before.

We will see what the future will bring.