2012 Annual Conference on Nuclear Technology - Opening Address

The accelerated energy turnaround in Germany began nearly one year ago. No surprises were to be expected from the report by the German Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (RSK) compiled in this situation on May 16, 2011 about the safety inspections of the then 17 nuclear power plants in Germany - its finding being that the German nuclear power plants enjoyed excellent safety standards by international comparison - or from the recommendation on May 28, 2011 by the Ethics Committee for Safe Energy Supply about the opt-out of the use of nuclear power by 2021. Results had become evident in advance of the disclosures. This leaves many questions about the short to medium term energy future unanswered to this day. These are vital problems affecting the existence of many industries and firms. The power industry is an area of the national economy too big and too important for a few months of strong emotions to be allowed to influence our actions for decades. Obviously, farsighted, balanced weighing was not achieved by German politics one year ago. Other countries are handling nuclear power differently also after Fukushima. An unprecedented process of inspecting European nuclear power plants was launched on EU level. The report confirmed the findings made in the national report about Germany. German nuclear power plants have a high level of robustness in the situations examined, and sufficient provisions are made against manifold events as well as major accidents. The political decisions about the nuclear power plants in Germany do not constitute a conclusive, comprehensive political answer to the problem of final storage of radioactive waste. There are approaches towards the final storage of high-level radioactive waste, but what is needed is a feasible solution to safe storage - which concept must also include the Gorleben site on the basis of facts, none of which have so far given any indication against the site's suitability as a safe repository.