Germany and Fukushima
Five years ago a tsunami destroyed the Japanese nuclear power plant Fukushima. Germany reacted with an energy turnaround.
On 11 March 2011 the ocean floor off the main Japanese island of Honshu quaked. Half an hour later a tsunami hit the island and destroyed the nuclear power plant on the coast. Meltdowns and explosions ensued. Nature and man were contaminated with radiation.
In the days that followed, a process of political re-thinking began in Germany. To start with, Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel took seven of the oldest German nuclear power plants from the grid. Then came a turn in energy policy. The Chancellor called for an energy turnaround. By 2022 all nuclear power stations were to be shut down and the energy instead drawn from renewable sources. An immense challenge, which was greeted with broad approval.
The energy turnaround is ahead of plan
According to preliminary estimates, renewable energy in 2015 already covered 33 per cent of the gross electricity consumption in Germany. In December 2015 wind energy was for the first time the main energy source for generating electricity – ahead of nuclear energy, black coal and brown coal. The approval of the German population is undiminished. According to a representative survey carried out in 2015, 92 percent of those polled were in favor of the energy turnaround, though 49 percent saw a need for adjustment. And in fact infrastructures and technical solution for routing and storage of electricity are still lacking. But the turnaround is running ahead of schedule.
In Japan meanwhile a Germany company is engaged in planning for the decommissioning of the nuclear power plant Fukushima. In January 2016 Nukem Technologies, based in Alzenau, received an order for the production of four feasibility studies. They are part of the national R & D project that the Japanese government has started to develop appropriate technologies for the decommissioning of the destroyed reactors at Fukushima.
