Existing reactors will be closed and the number of planned new constructions has been reduced and deferred (Bratford, 2012 :151). Particularly Germany has decided to make significant changes to their energy policies. This essay will examine German energy policies after Fukushima; what they are, how they are implemented, whom they impact and how, as well as their effect upon the CWA. .
A Backward Glance is fist needed to understand the present situation. In Germany, for the past four decades, there has always been a very ambivalent debate between proponents and opponents of nuclear power. At the beginning of the 1970s the first commercial nuclear power plants (NPPs) from corporations like Siemens and ThyssenKrupp began to operate. A giant nuclear reprocessing and waste disposal centre in Morsleben was built. Over the course of the years, with the helpful hand of government policies, which believed in the advantages of nuclear energy, a powerful nuclear infrastructure was established. It involved state-funded research centres, a nuclear construction industry and electricity utilities committed to a nuclear future (Jahn et al. 2012 : 159). However, the smooth policy trajectory was hindered by a growing and very popular opposition. In 2000, the German red-green coalition government decided to enforce a nuclear phase-out by 2022. By the end of 2010, a number of studies were conducted to investigate the interaction between the prolonged availability of nuclear capacity and electricity prices. The outcome of these reports was used to vindicate a 14-year postponement of the nuclear phase-out. The subsequent tense political situation and the incident in March can be seen as the last straw that broke the camel´s back. However, after the event in Fukushima in spring 2011, the German government decided, under pressure from the imminent elections, to withdraw completely from nuclear power (Bruninx et al.