Doing the Neutron Dance in Germany...

The Nuke Notes blog put up an interesting post recently,

http://djysrv.blogspot.com/2008/09/german-greens-reject-nuclear-fund-for.html

In order to appease their Green party allies, the German Christian Democrat party wants the currently operating nuclear power plants within the country to help pay for the construction and development of new "renewable" sources of energy such as solar and wind power to offset the large costs of building these new installations and covering their operating expenses. As if the idea of holding nuclear energy for ransom was not brazen enough, the German Green party feels that the Euro equivalent of $56 billion dollars is not enough and are holding fast to their plan of trying to completely phase out nuclear power.

This has been becoming a very contentious issue in the German government ever since the ill-conceived plan to completely rely on "renewables" for the bulk of its energy supply in 1998 when the Christian Democrats and Greens formed a political alliance during an election campaign. However, there is a growing number of dissenting voices in both the German government as well as the public who see the nuclear phase out as being very misguided. This is mainly because coal power plants are being built to take up the slack for energy production as solar and wind power fail to deliver on their empty promises as usual. If the nuclear phase out is not reversed, Germany is going to have to magically pull a replacement for a third of its energy supply out of its ass in 2030 when all of its nuclear plants are scheduled to be shut down. Sadly, it looks like this is going to mean lignite coal burning power plants. Brown must be the new "green". Germany can also be expected to continue its hypocrisy of buying electricity from France that was generated by nuclear power despite being opposed to the construction of any new nuclear plants within its own borders.

I do hope that the nuclear phase out policy is reversed by the German government very soon, because the construction of new nuclear plants in Europe is practically inevitable as the rising costs of natural gas and the inefficiency of solar and wind energy will practically force countries to explore clean and viable alternatives. Also, people will find out that coal and the word "clean" do not belong in the same sentence.

Here is an interesting article about the history of Germany's nuclear policy.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf43.html