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"Radioactive" waste drums put by parliament in anti-nuclear stunt
Sep 9, 2010, 14:40 GMT
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Berlin (dpa) - Demonstrators opposing the German government's decision to extend the lifetimes of nuclear power stations stacked 150 fake barrels of radioactive waste in front of parliament in Berlin on Thursday.
The protest came days after Chancellor Angela Merkel's government decided to extend a moratorium on nuclear power generation by an average of 12 years.
Just over half of Germans oppose nuclear power, which Merkel has described as an important 'bridging technology' until renewable energy sources are better developed.
'The extended operation of nuclear power plants will create thousands of tonnes of highly radioactive waste in the next decades,' said anti-nuclear spokesman Jochen Stay.
No secure nuclear waste repositories exist anywhere in the world, Stay added.
The government proposals, which still await parliamentary approval, are expected to generate an additional 4,400 tonnes of nuclear waste, bringing the estimated total to 21,600 tonnes.
Opposition parties and at least two of Germany's 16 federal states are expected to launch lawsuits against the proposals, which the government hopes to pass without seeking the states' approval in the upper house of parliament.
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