Do you want to go to the protest in Berlin?

We are planning to run a small charter to Berlin close to the protest date if we can generate enough interest.

I will be unable to go as I am otherwise indisposed but if you want to go please contact me on oldburynuclear@btinternet.com

As you can see the nuclear fiefs including E-on and RWE have softened up the german government.

Berlin - German opponents of nuclear energy Monday vowed to bring mass protests to the streets, after Chancellor Angela Merkel's government agreed to extend the life of nuclear power stations.


On Sunday the cabinet reached a late-night deal which would see the country's 17 nuclear plants run on average 12 years longer than planned, with the last due to close by 2021.

A narrow majority of the public opposes the plan, according to opinion polls.

"With the decision to lengthen the nuclear power station life-cycles, the popular resistance is really going to kick off," said Jochen Stay, spokesman for an umbrella group of anti-nuclear protest groups.

Merkel on Monday appeared to reach out to the protest movement, saying their concerns had been taken seriously.

"I know that many people are very sceptical and critical of nuclear energy," she said, but advanced the view that Germany needed nuclear as well as coal as 'bridge technologies'" to reach "the era of renewable energy."

A mass demonstration has been planned for September 18 in Berlin. A year ago a similar event drew tens of thousands of anti-nuclear protestors.

The centre-right coalition government has agreed to lengthen the run-times in return for a 2.3-billion-euro (2.9 billion dollars) per year tax on fuel rods, as well as contributions from the industry to a renewable energy fund.

On Sunday as the deal was being worked out in Berlin, the opposition Green and Social Democrat parties vowed to repeal the prospective law should they win a general election scheduled for 2013.

The red-green coalition, under previous chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, took the initial decision to phase out all the country's civil nuclear reactors - now overturned by Merkel.

"I promise the government a 'hot autumn,'" said Green Party leader Claudia Roth.

Merkel's coalition has been riven by internal conflicts, including over nuclear energy strategy, since coming to power in 2009.

Copyright DPA