Germany Decides to Abandon Nuclear Power by 2022
May 30th, 2011Via: AP:
Germany’s governing coalition said Monday it will shut down all the country’s nuclear power plants by 2022. The decision, prompted by Japan’s nuclear disaster, will make Germany the first major industrialized nation to go nuclear-free in years.
It also completes a remarkable about-face for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right government, which only late last year had pushed through a plan to extend the life span of the country’s 17 reactors — with the last scheduled to go offline in 2036.
But Merkel now says industrialized, technologically advanced Japan’s helplessness in the face of the Fukushima disaster made her rethink the risks of the technology.
“We want the electricity of the future to be safe, reliable and economically viable,” Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters on Monday after overnight negotiations among the governing parties. “We have to follow a new path.”
While Germany already was set to abandon nuclear energy eventually, the decision — which still requires parliamentary approval — dramatically speeds up that process.
