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A flyer in the door of the Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood of Berlin says "Nuclear Power? - No Thanks."(Photo: Susan Stone)

Anchor Lisa Mullins talks to reporter Susan Stone in Berlin about the news that Germany will phase out its nuclear power plants by 2022. Download MP3

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Lisa Mullins: The coalition government in Germany today announced a reversal of its policy on nuclear energy.  Just last year the Germans decided to extend the life of the country’s 17 nuclear power stations.  Well, today the government said it will phase them out by 2022.  The decision makes Germany the biggest industrial power to pledge to give up nuclear energy. Reporter Susan Stone is in Berlin.  Why is this happening in Germany now?  Is it a direct result of what has happened to the Fukushima plant in Japan?

Susan Stone: Well, that certainly has played a major role.  You know, in March Chancellor Marco put the entire energy strategy of the country under review, recommending that the country’s seven oldest nuclear reactors be shutdown for inspections. And you know, at that time the magazine Der Spiegel wrote, it says ‘If the Pope were suddenly advocating the use of birth control pills’ and now we have this really striking decision.

Mullins: Well, that’s really quite a comparison.  Why the big change in policy and how’s it being greeted?

Stone: Well people were quite disappointed when she did make that previous recommendation when there was a further dedication to nuclear power in the country.  So this has come as quite a surprise.  There are other issues going on as well, certainly political.  Her party has suffered some election losses and one could draw some conclusions from that as well.

Mullins: Nuclear power as you’re suggesting there is not very popular in Germany.

Stone: No, it’s not.  One of the things that I’ve noticed quite a bit is a large number of anti nuclear stickers and flyers.  There’s a sort of sun logo with a raised fist, with the words [speaking German], which is ‘nuclear power, no thanks.’ You know, people seem to see the nuclear issue here almost as a moral issue.  It’s just not healthy, it’s dangerous, so we shouldn’t have it.

Mullins: And at the same time though Germany gets something like 23% of its power from nuclear reactors, so what’s it gonna do if it’s planning on closing down all it’s nuclear power plants in 11 years?

Stone: That is the very important question.  Certainly renewables are very popular here.  There’s been a lot of focus on that.  There’s projects for wind power, solar power, geothermal, and the government subsidies have really helped growth in that, especially in the area of solar. But there’s also discussion about cutting solar subsidies, so that’s adding a bit of a problem to the whole discussion now.  One of the other recommendations is to cut overall energy consumption which is quite difficult all together.  And finally, the solution could include importing power from other countries that may have been produced by nuclear energy, and that has its own set of dilemmas.

Mullins: I wonder if you can contrast what’s happening now in Germany then with what’s happening here in the United States because people of course, both there and here, are concerned about Fukushima in Japan, but nobody in the U.S. is announcing a phase out of nuclear energy here.  Why do you think the difference exists?

Stone: There’s really one word for that answer and that’s Chernobyl.  Since I’ve been here I’ve heard stories of Germans who remember being afraid that they’d have deformed children because they stood out in the rain after Chernobyl.  And they didn’t know the risks.  Or they were just terrified, they’d fed their children milk or eaten vegetables from the farmer’s market and they didn’t know they weren’t supposed to. There is a very deep mistrust because of how Chernobyl was handled and the lack of information that was given to people. And this is especially true in East Germany where they were initially told that there was no risk, and in fact many people didn’t learn the true nature of the catastrophe until after reunification.  So many Germans have already lived through one nuclear disaster and they think it could happen again.

Mullins: Well, Chernobyl was felt in Germany and well beyond obviously, but in the United States we had Three Mile Island, the two were very different.  But is there something that goes beyond that example?

Stone: You know it’s been 25 years and yet there are still stories coming out about radioactive mushrooms and radioactive wild boars in Bavarian forests.  But on the other hand perhaps it’s not that cut and dry you know, France and Poland both faced risks from Chernobyl, and yet both are still embracing nuclear energy.

Mullins: All right, thank you very much, speaking to us from Berlin, reporter Susan Stone.  Thanks.

Stone: Thank you.

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