Germany moves to stop using nuclear energy

BERLIN -- Germany is determined to show the world how abandoning nuclear energy can be done.

The world's fourth-largest economy stands alone among leading industrialized nations in its decision to stop using nuclear energy because of its inherent risks. It is betting billions on expanding the use of renewable energy to meet power demands instead.

The transition was supposed to happen slowly over the next 25 years, but is being accelerated now, following Japan's nuclear plant problem, which Chancellor Angela Merkel has called a "catastrophe of apocalyptic dimensions." Berlin's decision to take seven of its 17 reactors off-line for three months for new safety checks has provided a glimpse into how Germany might wean itself from getting nearly a quarter of its power from atomic energy to none.

And experts say Germany's phaseout provides a good map that countries such as the United States, which use a similar amount of nuclear power, could follow. The German model would not work, however, in countries like France, which relies on nuclear energy for more than 70 percent of its power and has no intention of shifting.

"If we had the winds of Texas or the sun of California, the task here would be even easier," said Felix Matthes of Germany's Institute for Applied Ecology. "Given the great potential in the U.S., it would be feasible there in the long run too, even though it would necessitate huge infrastructure investments."

Nuclear power has been unpopular in Germany ever since radioactivity from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster drifted over. A center-left government a decade ago penned a plan to abandon the technology for good by 2021. Merkel's government amended it last year to extend the plants' lifetime by an average 12 years.

That plan was put on hold after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami compromised nuclear power plants in Japan, and is being re-evaluated as the safety of all of Germany's nuclear reactors is being rechecked.

Germany currently gets 23 percent of its energy from nuclear power. Its ambitious plan to shut down its reactors will require an investment of at least $210 billion in alternative energy sources, experts say.