15,000 demonstrated against nuclear power in Germany with 52 kilometres of light

[bananas]

http://sydney.indymedia.org.au/story/15-000-demonstrated-against-nuclear-power-germany-52-kilometres-light

15,000 demonstrated against nuclear power in Germany with 52 kilometres of light
Posted February 27th, 2009 by Diet Simon

By Diet Simon

Despite icy weather and light rain some 15,000 Germans demonstrated against nuclear power generation their Thursday evening, our early Friday morning, with a chain of light 52 kilometres long.

The route linked Braunschweig, Wolfenbüttel and Salzgitter in the north, an area that contains two frighteningly failing underground nuclear waste dumps, Asse II and Morsleben, and another to start operating in 2013, Schacht Konrad in Salzgitter.

Although most protesters were from the region, people travelled from all over Germany to the demo, called by trade unions, churches, advocacy groups, local governments, neighbourhood associations, firms, farmers with their tractors, to protest against irresponsible handling of nuclear waste.

The chain of light was to show the connections between the various waste dumps in Germany. People held burning firebrands and lanterns, there were searchlights and fires in drums. Balloonists lit up their burners and a group lit up a six-metre-high A wrapped with rags soaked in fuel (pictured at http://de.indymedia.org/2009/02/242803.shtml). Along the route were samba groups, fire jugglers and many actions.

<snip>

[davepc]

1. They should petition their government to stop importing electricity from France

and bear the higher costs of electricity in German from that action.

[bananas]

3. Germany exports electricity to France

Germany exports more electricity to France than it imports.
http://rwecom.geber.de/factbook/en/marketdata/electricity/grid/germanyimportandexportofelectricity.html
http://www.rte-france.com/espace_clients/an/clients_producteurs/vie/historiques_bilan_annu_2007.jsp

[madokie]

4. OOPs

http://energy.probeinternational.org/nuclear-power/nuclear-economics/the-limits-nuclear-mccain-shouldn-t-try-follow-french-disaster

Kind of old mind you but relevant, 13 May 2008

(snip) Not only does France export vast quantities of its low-value power (it is the EU’s biggest exporter by far), France meanwhile must import high-value peak power from its neighbours. This arrangement is so financially ruinous that France in 2006 decided to resurrect its obsolete oil-fired power stations, one of which dates back to 1968.

France’s nuclear program sprung not from business needs but from foreign policy goals. Immediately after the Second World War, France’s President, Charles de Gaulle, decided to develop nuclear weapons, to make France independent of either the U.S. or the USSR. This foreign policy goal spawned a commercial nuclear industry, but a small one -- France’s nuclear plants could not compete with other forms of generation, and produced but 8% of France’s power until 1973.

Then came the OPEC oil crisis and panic. Sensing that French sovereignty was at stake, the country decided to replace oil with electricity and to generate that electricity with nuclear. By 1974, three mammoth nuclear plants were begun and by 1977, another five. Without regulatory hurdles to clear and with cut-rate financing and a host of other subsidies from Euratom, the EU’s nuclear subsidy agency, France’s power system was soon transformed. By 1979, France’s frenzied building program had nuclear power meeting 20% of France’s power generation. By 1983 the figure was about 50% and by 1990 about 75% and growing.

Despite the subsidies, the overbuilding effectively bankrupted Electricite de France (EdF), the French power company. To dispose of its overcapacity and stay afloat, EdF feverishly exported its surplus power to its neighbours, even laying a cable under the English Channel to become a major supplier to the UK. At great expense, French homes were converted to inefficient electric home heating. And EdF offered cut-rate power to keep and attract energy-intensive industries -- Pechiney, the aluminum supplier, obtained power at half of EdF’s cost of production, and soon EdF was providing similar terms to Exxon Chemicals and Allied Signal.

[Systematic Chaos]

2. Will spending 43 milliseconds pitying them be sufficient?

Meh, I suppose I could go a whole 80 or even 90.

Time's up! kthxbai