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MAINZ, Germany – In a major victory for the anti-nuclear movement, Germany announced Monday that it will phase-out nuclear power over the next 11 years. The plan is for the country’s 17 atomic power plants to be shut down by 2022.
Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision was made in response to public outcry over Japan’s Fukushima disaster, which reinvigorated the country’s somewhat dormant anti-nuclear movement and gave Germany’s environmentalist ‘Green’ party a boost.
But Germany’s alternative energy movement is nothing new. Just ask the Sladeks.
After the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, when people in central Europe were increasingly worried about toxic fallout, Ursula Sladek and her husband Michael decided it was time to act.
Taking charge
“Radioactive residues from Chernobyl were found on the playgrounds and farmland of our community. We were not certain anymore, if the milk, the vegetables and other farm products were safe to eat for our children,” Michael Sladek told NBC News.
The Sladeks have five children and live in Schönau, a small town in Germany’s picturesque Black Forrest region.
They knew they had to look at the broader picture and started questioning the use of nuclear energy. Chernobyl became a wake-up call for them and, eventually, for their entire community.
At first, the Sladeks took a very “domestic” approach and searched for ways to preserve energy at home, while gradually looking into access to green energy resources and “green models” in the region.
“We were naïve to believe that after Chernobyl politicians would wake up and put an end to nuclear energy. But, when we saw that nothing was happening, we knew we had to roll up our sleeves and do something ourselves,” Ursula Sladek said in an interview with German broadcaster ZDF.
Pete Souza / The White House
President Barack Obama meets with Goldman Environmental Prize winners in the Oval Office, April 13, 2011. Ursula Sladek is in the center on crutches.
“While we were campaigning for local support and running competitions to generate environmental awareness among the residents of Schönau, we soon realized that we had to take the fight off the streets and to take new projects into our own hands,” Michael Sladek added.
The result: In a 1996 town referendum – after 10 years of intensive research, protests and battles with local authorities – the residents of Schönau voted to take over the local power grid, supplied by renewable energy only.
Environmental hero
Today, Ursula Sladek, runs EWS, a local utility company which is collectively owned by 1,000 citizens and which provides more than 400 million kilowatt hours of power to more than 100,000 households and businesses across Germany.
Needless to say that Ursula, a former primary school teacher, and Michael, a doctor, have become environmental heroes in their region, and beyond.
In April, Ursula Sladek was awarded the 2011 Goldman Environmental Prize for Excellence in Protecting the Environment. The prize, awarded by a San Francisco-based organization, recognizes six grassroots environmentalists across the globe annually and awards them $150,000 “to pursue their vision of a renewed and protected environment.”
For Ursula, the highlight of her recognition in the United States was an invitation to the Oval Office to meet with President Barack Obama. She presented him with the first English copy of her book, “100 good reasons against nuclear power.”
“Sladek has addressed climate change and energy security from the grassroots level, illustrating how social entrepreneurship and environmental stewardship can come together to tackle two of the world’s most urgent challenges,” the official Goldman Environmental Prize citation reads.
“Several American businessmen approached me during our visit to the award ceremony in San Francisco, and while they all admired our plight, their first question always was: ‘Can you make profit with this?’” Michael Sladek said
“And my answer always was: ‘Yes, we can,’” he said.
More than just green
Since its beginning, the company has been profitable, according to Michael Sladek, and grown annually, with total sales reaching approximately $95 million in 2009.
From the overall profit, company shareholders receive dividends; also, some of the money is reinvested in new projects or is used to support other local communities who want to run green energy companies that are independent from the large leading utility firms.
“We truly believe in the success and the future of decentralized renewable power facilities,” Michael Sladek said.
Experts, including the Sladeks, say that German politicians will now need to find the perfect mix of off- and on-shore windparks, solar farms, hydropower plants and other sustainable energy sources in order to meet its ambitious goal of closing all nuclear plants by 2022.
“Next week, we will have a delegation of officials and regular citizens from Japan visiting. They want to pick up some ideas for the future,” said Michael Sladek.
Leave a Comment:
Although moving beyond nuclear power has it's advantages, most of the world is not prepared to replace that power production- while we use more and more power annually. We haven't found a silver bullet yet.
We may not have a silver bullet, but we have lots of golden BBs. Many methods can be used to replace conventional uranium fission reactors. Combined cycle power/fuels plants and thorium can power us for decades without using uranium, which will run out in a few decades anyway and produce lethal wastes that last a will be harmful for millennia.
I am sure the Chinese will be pleased by this news. Since the Germans will not be wanting any more nuclear fuel for their soon to be shut down reactors, it mean their will be all the more uranium for the Chinese who will be building 20 more nuclear power plants over the next 30 years.
I wonder what the Germans will be using to generate electricity when their nuclear power plants go off line? Coal? Oil? Maybe wood? LOL! Yeah, that's going to be really good for the environment. Or maybe they will just sit in the dark while they eat their cold schnitzel and sauerkraut.
Bitter much? Common sense (if you had it) would tell you that they won't shut down those reactors until they had an alternate power source. As it is, Germany's oil production and imports have both dropped since 2001. Not many countries can say the same. They have a goal, lets see if they can meet it on a national level.
This a great story, and a positive example of how the U.S. can proceed towards independence from foreign oil. We need entrepreneurs like the Sladeks to start the green energy revolution from the ground up here in the U.S. We need to end subsidies to oil and coal companies, and reform the regulatory framework to create a level playing field for renewable energy. Nuclear can still play a role, but we'll need to revisit reactor design and siting in light of the lessons learned from the Japan quake.
Progressively and gradually ending the nuke plants are good for environment.
Green energy now please.
There are rays of light and truth that shine out and are the work of the best kind of people . Thank you for all your hard work to bring this about.
what.....the article had less information than a government form...did i miss something
Every one wants "green" energy until it appears in their backyard and they realize how much space it takes up and how it requires transmission lines to move it. As the story notes, "...German politicians will now need to find the perfect mix of off- and on-shore wind parks, solar farms, hydropower plants and other sustainable energy sources..." They also have to convince the consumer that paying extra for power is worth it as well as that significant physical impact of the decentralized power generation is worth it. That will be the big step.
All of these solutions face opposition in the US because they take up significant physical space. Hydro power is being removed from service all over the place due to environmentalist protest. The environmental organizations are fighting such solutions every day right now! They offer no solutions but love to sue and fight to stop alternatives.
The reason power is so inexpensive is the US is due to centralized power generation. Our power generation geographic footprint is very small. The physical footprint of green power is very large. As described in the article but not explained is that "decentralized power generation" means power generation everywhere and transmission of that power to where it is needed. Powering homes is easy. Powering businesses and having power available 24 hours is the trick.
If you want green power, you must be willing to have power generation facilities every where; solar panels and wind generators on roofs, lakes, ocean shores (that means beaches), all over the landscape and the power lines to convey that power to the cities. Lots of power lines. The NIMBY protests have just started.
everyone complains about the big oil companies, the price of fuel and opec, but few are doing anything about it! the technology is here folks.... ursula is a hero and hopefully her message will find refuge in the us.
Its all about economics, right now fossil fuels are the cheapest and more reliable form of energy for decades to come. Green energy systems are still in their infancy and will need more R&D if they are to reduce costs and get over the huge startup costs. I see green systems viable in the near future if and only if gas goes up past 5 dollars.
This all sounded great until the word hydropower came up. While I feel that hydropower has its place, there is a growing movement that opposes hydropower. Dams have been removed here in the U.S. because of environmental concerns. There are those who want all dams removed, something I think is unrealistic, but a country cannot develop 100% of its hydropower without significant environmental cost.