People in the small Black Forest town of Schönau in Germany have bought the local electricity grid and are now offering atomic-power-free green power all over the country.
It started as a parents’ initiative in response to the 1986 meltdown in Chernobyl. Click here for the story of the Elektrizitätswerke Schönau (EWS, Electricity Works Schönau) in English.
The EWS has produced an interesting list of 100 reasons that make good arguments against nuclear energy. I reproduce it below. For now you’ll have to make do with the bare bones, or read the expanded texts in German, but if I get time I’ll translate them.
#1 Dependency
All uranium has to be imported (to Europe).
#2 Expulsions
Uranium mining destroys the basis of life of tens of thousands of people.
#3 Water wastage
Uranium mining robs precious drinking water.
#4 Radioactive sludge lakes
Toxic sludges produced by uranium mining endanger people and the environment.
#5 Cancer from the mine
Uranium mining causes cancer.
#6 Dead earth
Uranium mining leaves behind dead earth.
#7 Expensive dirt
If it’s possible at all, cleaning up uranium mining areas devours billions.
#8 Uranium shortage
For 20 years already uranium mines have not been able to satisfy the consumption by nuclear power stations.
#9 Limited deposits
Uranium reserves will be depleted in a few decades.
#10 Uranium transportation
An accident with uranium hexafluoride can have catastrophic consequences.
#11 Plutonium freight
To produce fuel rods, many tonnes of pure weapons-grade plutonium are transported on European roads every year.
#12 Cancer danger
Nuclear power stations make not only children ill.
#13 Emissions
Through their smoke stacks and their effluents nuclear power stations pass radioactive pollutants into the air and waters.
#14 Flawed limits
The radiation protection limits allow for radiation damage to occur.
#15 Low dosage radiation
Low dosage radiation is more dangerous than officially presumed.
#16 Tritium
Radioactive waste materials from nuclear power stations even imbed in the DNA.
#17 Hot streams
The warm effluent water from nuclear power stations robs fish of oxygen.
#18 Radiant jobs
Thousands of unskilled atomic labourers do the dirty work in nuclear power stations – often without adequate protection from radiation.
#19 Self-protection
The bosses of the nuclear electricity stations themselves privately keep a long way away from their stations.
#20 Safety flaws
None of the present 17 nuclear power stations in Germany would now be given a licence to operate.
#21 Age risk
The longer an atomic power station has operated, the more unsafe it becomes.
#22 Notifiable occurrences
Every three days a “security-relevant occurrence” happens in a German atomic power station.
#23 Shortage of replacement parts
New mistakes are easily made when nuclear power stations are repaired.
#24 Stone-age technology
Technology 30 years old is ready only for the scrap heap!
#25 Earthquake danger
Atomic power stations are insufficiently secured against earthquakes.
#26 Aircraft crash
Atomic power stations are not protected against aircraft crashes.
#27 Collapsing new constructions
Even new reactor types are not safe.
#28 Insurance cover
Taken together, 50 cars are better insured than an atomic power station.
#29 Total meltdown
A total meltdown, the worst assumable accident in a nuclear power station, can happen any day.
#30 Safety ranking
Even in an international comparison, German nuclear power stations are unsafe.
#31 Wild weather
Even just a thunderstorm can cause a power outage in a station, one of the most dangerous situations.
#32 Profit greed
If there’s doubt, profit goes before safety in an atomic power station – even after explosions.
#33 Human risk factor
People make mistakes – fatal in an atomic power station.
#34 Boracic acid
Several operators of nuclear power stations for years ignored operating regulations.
#35 Cable chaos
Mistakes in the electrics of nuclear power stations are par for the course – with grave consequences.
#36 Worse than Chernobyl
A total meltdown in a German nuclear power station would have worse consequences than those from Chernobyl.
#37 Cancer for millions
In case of a total meltdown in Germany, millions of people would have to expect serious impairment of their health.
#38 Loss of home
In case of a total meltdown, an area of scores of thousands of square kilometres becomes permanently uninhabitable.
#39 Evacuation
Evacuation of an entire region in a few fours is not possible.
#40 Iodine scarcity
Iodine tablets are useless if one has to leave the house to get them.
#41 Economic collapse
A total meltdown causes national economic collapse.
#42 Atomic waste mountains
Atomic power produces any amount of atomic waste.
#43 Disposal lie
Not one gram of atomic waste has yet been harmlessly disposed of.
#44 Technically unsolved
Final storage has not even been solved technically.
#45 One million years
Atomic waste remains a radiating danger for one million years.
#46 Atomic waste dump Asse II
The “trial final repository” Asse is being flooded by brine after only 20 years of operation.
#47 No final repository
Worldwide there is no safe final repository for highly radioactive waste.
#48 Not in my back yard
No one wants the atomic waste.
#49 Castor tricks
Atomic waste caskets are insufficiently tested.
#50 Reprocessing lie I
The so-called reprocessing of fuel rods turns atomic waste into more atomic waste.
#51 Atomic waste on the beach
Reprocessing plants are radioactive polluters.
#52 Reprocessing lie II
Immense quantities of atomic waste from Germany are still stored in the reprocessing plants in France and Great Britain.
#53 Atomic waste dump Morsleben
West German nuclear companies unscrupulously tipped their waste into the Morsleben salt mine that was the former communist East Germany’s nuclear dump.
#54 Atomic waste dump Schacht Konrad
Right under the city of Salzgitter 865 kilograms of plutonium are to be stored some day.
#55 Interim dumps
Highly radioactive atomic waste is being kept in sheds not much better than potato barns.
#56 Castor radiation
Castor waste caskets exude radioactive radiation.
#57 Short-term disposal
The Castor caskets holding atomic waste are officially stated to last 40 years.
#58 Muzzles for experts
To make Gorleben the possible final repository, the federal government muzzled its geologists.
#59 Water in Gorleben
Water is leaking into the Gorleben salt deposit, too.
#60 Atomic waste destroys final repositories. Radioactivity decomposes the salt rock.
#61 Cracks in granite
Even granite is too mobile for atomic waste.
#62 Radioactive cooking pots
Cooking puts made from nuclear power stations’ waste.
#63 Uranium waste to Russia
The uranium enrichment plant in Gronau dumps its waste in Russia.
#64 Moonshine fantasies
The moon is too far away.
#65 Nuclear alchemists
Transmutation doesn’t solve the atomic waste problem, either.
#66 Supply security
Atomic power stations by no means deliver power reliably.
#67 Surplus capacities
Atomic power stations are superfluous.
#68 Greenhouse effect
Atomic power is not CO2-free.
#69 Climate protection
Atomic power does not save the climate.
#70 Efficiency dud
Atomic power is pure waste of energy.
#71 Waste of electricity
Atomic power promotes waste of electricity.
#72 Subsidies
The atomic industry picks up billions in government subsidies.
#73 Tax-free fuel
Uranium consumption is tax-free.
#74 Tax-free reserves
The atomic corporation don’t have to pay tax on billions in revenue.
#75 Research impediment
Atomic ruins devour billions in research funding.
#76 Profit extension
Only the corporations would profit from longer running times for atomic power stations.
#77 Power prices
Atomic power drives up power prices.
#78 Not marketable
New atomic power stations can’t be profitable.
#79 Corporation might
Atomic power cements the centralised structure of the energy supply and the might of the electricity corporations.
#80 Loss of liberty
Atomic power robs our freedom and curtails our basic rights.
#81 Right to life
Atomic power breaches the basic right to life.
#82 Police violence
To suppress protest against atomic power, the state resorts to violence.
#83 50 years of discord
Atomic power splits society and has done so for decades.
#84 Corporation policies
The energy corporations have much too much influence on politics.
#85 Treating people as stupid
For more than 30 years the power corporations have spun the fairytale of “the lights going out without atomic power”.
#86 Unwanted
No one wants to live next to an atomic power station.
#87 Ethics
Using atomic power is unethical.
#88 Camouflage program
Civilian and military uses of atomic energy are inseparable.
#89 Fast breeders
“Fast breeders” potentiate the dangers of proliferation of nuclear weapons.
#90 Dirty bombs
Radioactive substances from atomic facilities can be used for dirty bombs.
#91 Targets of attack
Atomic power stations are potential targets of attack.
#92 Uranium ammunition
Waste from uranium enrichment becomes radioactive ammunition.
#93 War over uranium
The uranium hunger of the atomic industry foments new conflicts.
#94 Renewable energies
A 100% renewables-based energy supply is possible.
#95 Not compatible
Atomic power and renewable energies don’t get along.
#96 Investment impediment
Atomic power prevents innovation and investment.
#97 Two per cent technology
Atomic power cannot make any meaningful contribution to the energy supply.
#98 Phasing-out model
Atomic power is a phasing-out model globally.
#99 Jobs
Atomic power endangers jobs.
#100 Energy turnaround
Atomic power blocks the energy turnaround.