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. 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.
“A clear sign that people no longer accept the way nuclear waste is handled,” said Ursula Schönberger of
Arbeitsgemeinschaft Schacht KONRAD, fighting plans to start dumping nuclear waste in a former iron ore mine, Schacht Konrad, in Salzgitter, an industrial city of 112,000 people, from 2013.
The anti-nuclear movement is particularly incensed about a recently passed law that will have taxpayers footing the bill for nuclear dumps although the waste in them was produced by power companies, which will not be paying.
If waste disposal costs were completely factored into the power price, opponents say, the legend of cheap nuclear electricity would be blown away.
One of the participating groups, ROBIN WOOD, said the next German election will also be a vote on whether the decided exit from nuclear power is thrown out and trouble-prone nukes can stay on the grid, producing waste for which there is no final disposal method.
An old potash mine used as a dump called Asse II is flooding at a rate of 12 cubic metres a day and throwing up all sorts of questions about safe keeping of nuclear leftovers for a million years. report
– from sydney.indymedia. 27 Feb 2009