Project Manhattan
Energy transition
Factcheck
GERMANY
The German Energy Transition law was introduced in 2000, since then the amount of renewable energies in the country has been rising constantly. According to their Ministry of Economy renewables account for a third of German energy production: wind power is the most important factor, followed by biomass, photovoltaic and solar power. Their goal is to increase those percentages to 55 – 60% in 2035. The last nuclear reactor is to be phased-out in 2022.
ITALY
Nuclear power phase-out commenced in Italy in 1987. Following a referendum in that year, Italy's four nuclear power plants were closed down, the last in 1990. The fourth cabinet led by Silvio Berlusconi tried to implement a new nuclear plan but a referendum held in June 2011 stopped any project.
SWEDEN
After the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, there was a referendum in 1980 about nuclear power. As a result of this, the Swedish parliament decided that a nuclear power phase-out should be completed by 2010. On 5 February 2009, the Government of Sweden effectively ended the phase-out policy. In June 2016, the government decided to phase out the output tax on nuclear power, and allow ten new replacement reactors to be built at current nuclear plants.
JAPAN
Once a nuclear proponent, Prime Minister Naoto Kan became increasingly anti-nuclear following the Fukushima nuclear disaster. In July 2011, Kan said that "Japan should reduce and eventually eliminate its dependence on nuclear energy ... saying that the Fukushima accident had demonstrated the dangers of the technology". Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government, reelected on a platform of restarting nuclear power, plans to have nuclear power account for 20 to 22 percent of the country’s total electricity supply by 2030.
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