Germany walks alone

Some voices have been speaking of the end of nuclear energy as if it were the Moon landing, or the dawn of the industrial revolution. Only the future can tell if this will be the case.

What is surprising about it, on the one hand, is that Germany is again walking a lonely road, as if all the rest of the world were wrong but her. Never had she been so remote from her EU partners as at the recent G8 meeting in Deauville. On the other hand, the popular will has prevailed against what, in spite of the liberalization of the European energy market 15 years ago, is still one of the strongest monopolies. For more than 30 years the Germans have been actively opposing nuclear power plants, in the only country where the Greens have become a relevant political force.

The contrary example is Japan, where even Fukushima has failed to prompt anything beyond a small anti-nuclear protest, which went practically unnoticed. In a recent article, Kenichi Mishima, who teaches philosophy in Tokyo, makes two points that ought to be remembered. Firstly, a number of scientists there have repeatedly warned of the dangers of nuclear energy, especially in a land of frequent seismic movements. There has been plenty of available information, but it has received little public attention - the Japanese being gripped in intense competition on the job, and in a spiral of soaring consumption.

Secondly, Tepco, owner of the Fukushima nuclear plant, spends someone billion eurosevery year on advertising with the message that the plants are safe (if they are, why spend so much money on saying so?), cultivating a dependency in the media, which loyally fulfill their function of disinformation. Tepco finances scientists and universities in such a way that the pro-nuclear man prospers in his career, while promotion is closed to the critic. After the catastrophe, far from focusing on the damaged plants, the pending threats are being carefully downplayed; the advertising message being centered on the unity of the Japanese: "By remaining united we will be strong, and walk the road of prosperity."

In Germany, however, the pressure of the street has shifted votes toward the Greens and, in passing, to the Social Democrats. So much so that the liberals, who had always favored nuclear energy, have done an ecological U-turn in order to save their seats in regional parliaments, following in the footsteps of Angela Merkel, who has acted likewise so as not to take a nose-dive in the next national poll. Critics of representative democracy - "everyone votes, but those who serve the rich always win" - have had to admit that the popular will, when it is iron-hard, prevails over the most powerful groups.

The German nuclear industry began auguring the evils of junking a source as clean and cheap as nuclear energy. The alternatives would be to go back to coal, increasing pollution; or turn to gas, aggravating the dependency on Russia; or pay a high price for renewable energies. The government has undercut this campaign by announcing that it has the resources needed, and that subsidies for renewable energies are reasonable in scale, in the order offive billion euros for wind power. Indeed, the heaviest prospective costs will be the quantities demanded in the courts by the nuclear industry in indemnities for the disappointment of its expectations.

What makes this abandonment of nuclear power all the more reasonable is that Germany will be a leader in the development of alternative energies. Siemens has to drop its participation in more than 400 nuclear plants planned throughout the world, in sharp competition with other countries, chiefly France; but nobody now knows whether all these plants will go ahead. On the other hand it has the chance to lead a technological revolution in which the only competitor in sight is Spain.