Nuclear policy

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One understands nuclear politics

  1. the entirety of political endeavors aimed at the peaceful use of nuclear energy and the limitation of the proliferation of nuclear weapons ,
  2. political efforts to end the use of nuclear energy (described in the article " nuclear phase-out ")
  3. in the narrower sense (and described in this article) the energy policy of a country or a party with regard to nuclear energy (in the sense of 'peaceful use of nuclear energy')

Because the term "atomic policy" was connected with the topic "atomic armament of the Bundeswehr" in 1957 (see below), it was hardly used anymore in the above-mentioned narrower sense.

There was also a second reason for this: many terms with the prefix "Atom-" became political slogans for opponents of nuclear power (see nuclear power plant , atomic energy , etc.); Proponents of nuclear energy from then on consistently spoke of "nuclear": nuclear energy, nuclear power, nuclear power station , etc. (see also the history of terms ). Anyone who said "nuclear power" instead of "nuclear energy" was (provided he did it consciously and the recipient knew this connotation ) to be recognized as a nuclear energy skeptic or opponent.

Development of nuclear policy as an independent policy area

The atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (and later surface nuclear weapon explosions for test purposes until 1963) made many people around the world (especially in American politics and the public) aware of the enormous amounts of energy contained in small amounts of uranium or plutonium :

  • the Hiroshima bomb had the power of a 13,000-ton bomb; this resulted from the fission of less than one kilogram of highly enriched uranium.
  • the Nagasaki bomb had the explosive power of a 21,000 ton bomb; this resulted from the splitting of just under 1240 grams of plutonium.

Also in response to growing economic energy demands , governments began promoting the peaceful uses of nuclear energy in the 1950s.

In general, in the 1950s many were inspired by visionary exuberance:

In the 1970s, nuclear policy received great impetus in many western industrialized countries:

German nuclear policy

history

US President Eisenhower coined the catchphrase “Atoms for peace” when he took office in December 1953.

December 1954, the French National Assembly approved the ratification of the Paris Treaties (thus the restoration of German sovereignty), the establishment of the WEU and the inclusion in the Brussels Pact .

After regaining its sovereignty on May 5, 1955, the Federal Republic of Germany endeavored to participate in efforts to research and peaceful use of nuclear energy with an independent nuclear policy, embedded in the policy of European unification.

The German economy was very interested in an active German nuclear policy, because since September 1954 was the American industry in the nuclear reactor business . The US offered separate 235 U for research purposes . The interested companies participated in the plans through the Physikalische Studiengesellschaft Düsseldorf mbH and had made large sums of money available since November 1954. Both Karlsruhe and Munich had plans to build reactors.

In August 1955, the UNESCO conference on the peaceful use of atomic energy took place in Geneva , which also signaled the beginning of large-scale development for the Germans. The American delegation brought a small demonstration reactor and offered $ 350,000 jump-start funding for each reactor construction.

Institutional anchoring

On October 5, 1955, the " Federal Ministry for Nuclear Issues " was founded. Franz Josef Strauss became the first minister ; he was called " Minister of Atomic Energy ". On January 26, 1956, under his chairmanship, the German Atomic Energy Commission , consisting of representatives from politics, business and science , met for the first time . The minister appointed the members, according to the statutes the commission had to meet at least twice a year, the meetings were not open to the public according to the statutes. Five technical commissions were established. Commission No. 2 for Research and Young Talent was constituted at the meeting on May 3, 1956 and was headed by Werner Heisenberg . According to the statutes, the commission had "the task of advising the Federal Minister for Atomic Affairs in all essential matters relating to the research and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes".

The priority was to provide legislative advice with the aim of replacing Act No. 22 of the Allied High Commission with a German Atomic Energy Act . The law came into force on January 1, 1960, almost four years after the first consultation in the Atomic Energy Commission.

In April 1956 the first nuclear policy debate took place in the Bundestag.

From 1957 numerous research reactors were put into operation in Germany (see list of nuclear reactors in Germany ).

The Kahl nuclear power plant was the first nuclear power plant in Germany to go into operation on June 17, 1961 (see list of nuclear power plants in Germany )

The Radiation Protection Commission emerged from the Atomic Energy Commission as an advisory body . Together with the Reactor Safety Commission (founded in 1958) and the Nuclear Technology Committee , they support the Federal Office for Radiation Protection as the supervisory authority.

The responsible ministry is the Federal Environment Ministry .

Change of terminology due to the debate about the nuclear armament of the Bundeswehr

In 1956 and in the years thereafter, the term "atomic policy" was mostly used and understood differently in Germany: In 1957 it became apparent to the German public that the federal government under Konrad Adenauer wanted to arm the Bundeswehr with nuclear weapons. These plans were largely driven by Franz Josef Strauss (CSU), who had been " Atomic Minister " until October 16, 1956 (see below) and from that day was Minister of Defense (" Federal Ministry of Defense ").

"For Adenauer, the nuclear armament of the Bundeswehr was now a question of sovereignty, equality, equality with other major European powers. In order to downplay the importance of nuclear weapons in front of fearful Germans, he named tactical nuclear weapons in a press conference on April 5, 1957 "nothing more than the further development of the artillery".

This statement sparked a storm of indignation:

  • In April 1957, 18 prominent physicists, the " Göttinger 18 ", protested against these plans in the "Göttingen Declaration".
  • In April 1957 the campaign " Fight against atomic death " was launched

Because the term "atomic policy" was connected with the topic "atomic armament of the Bundeswehr" in 1957, it was later rarely used in Germany (see introduction).

Europeanization of German nuclear policy

With the signing of the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community on March 25, 1957 in Rome by France , Italy , the Benelux countries and Germany (EURATOM), German nuclear policy was Europeanized very quickly . To this day, funds for research into and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes have been placed in the EU budget . According to the EU Commission, funds totaling EUR 3.092 billion are available for the implementation of the seventh framework program in the period 2007–2011 .

Nuclear phase-out

Until the change of government in 1998, all federal governments were of the opinion that the use of nuclear energy should be promoted. In 1986, after the severe Chernobyl reactor disaster , the SPD decided to withdraw from the use of nuclear energy, but was initially unable to implement this politically. Only the Red-Green coalition under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder took a fundamental change in nuclear policy and pursued a long-term phase-out of nuclear energy ( " nuclear phase-out "). A key player in this was Jürgen Trittin , Minister of the BMU ( Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety ) from 1998–2005 .

On June 14, 2000, the so-called “ atomic consensus ” was initialed . The draft contract between the Federal Republic of Germany and the operating companies regulates the phase-out of nuclear energy. The binding contract was concluded on June 11, 2001 on the basis of this draft. The Atomic Energy Act was amended in 2002 on the basis of the contract . Based on a standard term of around 32 years, the contract determines which residual electricity a power plant may still produce during the operating years. If the electricity production of the individual power plants from the past is projected into the future, the remaining electricity quantities show that the last of 19 German nuclear power plants will be shut down around 2021. These dates can be postponed because residual amounts of electricity can be transferred between power plants within the framework of the nuclear consensus.

In 2010, the ruling coalition of CDU / CSU and FDP pushed through an extension of the service life of German nuclear power plants with the aim of achieving CO 2 savings. By changing the original regulations with the help of a new contract with the energy supply companies and a new amendment to the Atomic Energy Act, a term extension of an average of 12 years was granted. In March 2011, a few days after the start of the Fukushima nuclear disaster , the federal government made another turn in its nuclear policy (see nuclear moratorium ).

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ see Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons Tests in the Atmosphere, in Space and Underwater
  2. ↑ The following examples come from Manfred Kriener : The atomic happiness. - Nuclear cars and reactors for the household: In the post-war period, the enthusiasm of engineers and politicians for nuclear energy knew no bounds. Only the electricity industry remained skeptical at first. In: The time . No. 38/2006.
  3. ↑ a b spiegel.de of April 10, 2007 Franz Walter : Aufstand der Atomforscher
  4. ↑ AtomkraftwerkePlag Wiki: Atomic Policy
  5. ↑ Agreement between the Federal Government and the energy supply companies of June 14, 2000 ( Memento of the original of September 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 1.4 MB)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bmwi.de
  6. ↑ www.kernenergie.de: History ( Memento of the original dated December 28, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed on January 15, 2012.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kernenergie.de
  7. ↑ Law on the orderly termination of the use of nuclear energy for commercial generation of electricity ( memento of the original from October 20, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 707 kB)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bmwi.de
  8. ↑ Overview of the expected decommissioning dates for German nuclear power plants

literature

  • Anna von Spiczak: Image upheavals and political change in German nuclear policy: From unclouded euphoria to contaminated sites. VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, 2010, ISBN 978-3-639-27502-5 .
  • Tilmann Hanel: The bomb as an option. Motives for building a nuclear infrastructure in the Federal Republic up to 1963 . Klartext Verlag, Essen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8375-1283-0 .

Web links

Wiktionary: Atomic politics  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations