Germany Must Retain Nuclear Phase-Out Plan - Party Leader

[struggle4progress]

BERLIN (AP)--Germany must stick with plans to phase out nuclear power, Social Democrat leader Franz Muentefering said in comments published Sunday, raising another potential roadblock for a future coalition government.

Outgoing Social Democrat Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder struck an agreement with power firms to shut down the country's nuclear plants one by one over the next two decades.

But conservative Chancellor-designate Angela Merkel has argued that the nuclear plants should be allowed to operate longer, provided they are safe. Neither party plans to build new nuclear power stations.

In an interview in a Sunday newspaper, Muentefering was quoted as saying that the existing plants' life spans "cannot be extended. The agreement with industry to get out of nuclear must remain as it was." <snip>

http://www.thebusinessonline.com/DJStory.aspx?DJStoryID=20051030DN002660

[SouthernDem2004]

1. Do they want to phase out nuclear power altogether or just outdated

plants?

[struggle4progress]

2. ... The two key disputes are how to save 35 billion euros ($42.5 billion)

by 2007 and whether to reverse the outgoing government's 2000 law to close all Germany's 17 nuclear power plants by 2020 ...

Tough path ahead for German government-in-waiting
30 Oct 2005 15:14:04 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Philip Blenkinsop
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L30665970.htm

[bananas]

3. both n/t

[SouthernDem2004]

4. What will they do for power??? Hydro or fossil? Sounds like a bad move.

[NickB79]

5. They'll buy nuclear-produced power from France

France produces the majority of it's electricity from nuclear power, and is a power exporter to other European countries. For some reason, it's ok to buy nuclear-derived electricity from neighbors but not ok to generate it themselves. It's kinda like saying it's wrong to use drugs, but then smoking the weed your neighbor grows :-)

During the massive heat waves that swept across Europe a couple of years ago, German wind turbines stood idle as air currents died down and electricity production dwindled. Ironically for environmentalists who campaigned to against nuclear power, the closed nuclear reactors will be replaced in large part by coal-burning plants.

[SouthernDem2004]

6. Sounds like bad juju to me.