Tens of thousands of Germans march against nuclear power.

[Better Believe It]

Thousands of Germans attend anti-nuclear protest
By Dave Graham
Reuters
September 18, 2010

BERLIN —Tens of thousands of Germans surrounded Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office on Saturday in an anti-nuclear demonstration that organisers said was the biggest of its kind since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.

The protest, which organizers said drew 100,000 people, could help to mobilise growing grass-roots opposition to Ms. Merkel’s ruling centre-right coalition, which has suffered a slump in popularity since taking office last October.

Near the start of the protest, police said there were close to 40,000 demonstrators. They declined to give a later estimate.

In a peaceful march around Berlin’s government quarter, protesters converged on Merkel’s chancellery to call for a stop to her unpopular plans to extend the lifespans of Germany’s nuclear power stations by an average of 12 years.

“There’s not been such a big (anti-nuclear) demonstration in one place since 1986,” said Jochen Stay, one of the protest’s main organizers. “We’ve made it very clear today that a broad majority of the population is against this nuclear cult.”

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/Thousands+Germans+attend+anti+nuclear+protest/3545178/story.html


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Thousands of Protesters Join Berlin March Against Merkel's Nuclear Plans
By Tony Czuczka and Patrick Donahue
September 18, 2010

Tens of thousands of nuclear-power opponents marched through downtown Berlin to show their disapproval of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s proposal to let German reactors run as much as 14 years longer than planned.

About 100,000 people took part in today’s protest, which went past the Federal Chancellery, where Merkel has her office, Christoph Bautz, a spokesman for the organizers, said in a telephone interview. Berlin police spokeswoman Claudia Frank said the number exceeded the 30,000 demonstrators expected by organizers. She declined to give a more precise estimate.

“This is the broadest resistance yet” to the extension of nuclear power, Claudia Roth, leader of the opposition Greens party said in comments aired on N-TV television. “This is a signal.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-18/thousands-of-protesters-join-berlin-march-against-merkel-s-nuclear-plan.html



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Thousands Protest Against German Nuclear Plan
by Agence France Presse
September 18, 2010

BERLIN - Tens of thousands demonstrated in Berlin Saturday against the government's proposal to extend the life of Germany's nuclear power plants for another decade or more.

Waving banners and balloons marked with the slogans of the anti-nuclear movement, they turned out in force to protest outside Chancellor Angela Merkel's headquarters.

The organisers -- environmental groups backed by left-leaning opposition parties -- put their numbers at 100,000, though police made it 37,000.

Merkel's centre-right coalition on Sunday agreed to lift the deadline of 2022 for the phasing out of nuclear power set by an earlier Social Democrat-led government.

With no permanent storage site for radioactive waste in place and fears about a repetition of a disaster in Germany like the Chernobyl meltdown in Ukraine in 1986, polls indicate a majority of voters oppose an extension.

[ananda]

1. Wow. Good for them!

nt

[COLGATE4]

2. Fine sentiment but totally impractical. Assuming that they were

able to push phasing out the plants when originally scheduled, what do they think will replace them? It takes at least ten years, probably more to bring a fossil-fuel plant into production from beginning construction, and I'm not sure a lot of the good Germans are wild about having more of those. On the other hand, there is no reason that well-maintained nuclear plants cannot extend their operating life far beyond that originally calculated. We have routinely extended operating licenses for nuclear plants here in the US without any problem.