Germany to ditch Nuclear Power

Germany has announced plans to shut all nuclear reactors by 2022, in a policy reversal drawn up because of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.

Massive demonstrations (200,000 people in four large cities) have brought the nuclear safety issue to the forefront and Germans tend to have very strong opposition to nuclear power.

Meanwhile the Fukushima crisis grows with a spineless press and outright lies from Tepco the close to bankrupt Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO has shares in Victoria's privatised brown coal power companies)

Huge cost

Since the plant was crippled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, it has leaked radioactive substances into the environment. The tsunami left more than 15,200 dead and some 8,600 missing in north-eastern Japan.

The estimated cost includes 4.3 trillion yen to purchase all land within 20 kilometres of the plant - the current no-go zone - some 630 billion yen for compensation payments and 740 billion to 15 trillion yen to scrap the plant's reactors, run by TEPCO.

The government needs to undergo a drastic review of the country's nuclear energy policy in order to secure the costs.