It has now been a month since an earthquake and tsunami devastated the country of Japan. At the same time a very frightening situation has developed in the form of a nuclear crisis. Japan has been fighting around the clock to keep three nuclear reactors from a complete meltdown. And the world has watched with horrified eyes.

Because of this many people and countries have started to reevaluate once again the use of nuclear power as a standard energy source. Up until now many countries have relied on this fairly inexpensive form of energy. But the world has found out that the cost is really much higher to our health and peace of mind.

Although some countries have vowed to continue with promoting nuclear power, one European country, has decided to set a goal towards converting to much safer forms of energy. Recently, Jürgen Becker (Secretary of State for the Environment) from Germany made the announcement that they will shut down all their nuclear power stations by 2020. This announcement however has been considered to be at odds with the public stance of the German Government policy. That stance is that no decision has yet been made about the nuclear power stations’ future following the Fukushima disaster.

Although many applaud this announcement, as with everything there will be growing pains. Germany’s main energy suppliers will feel a lot of transitional pain as it will cost them hundred of millions of dollars in expected revenues. The rest of the European energy sector will also feel the impact as several are international players. At this time France is very nuclear friendly. And even though, Germany has recently shut down 8 reactors on a permanent basis with 9 more to follow by 2020, it is currently exporting energy from France's nuclear sources.


So is Germany just blowing smoke to meet it's proposed goals 2020? Hopefully not. But more realistic is perhaps a suggestion made by the Greenpeace organization that claimed that 90 percent of European coal and nuclear power could be phased out by 2030. One thing is for certain and that is the World community must take a hard look at this issue and work together on finding solutions towards safer and clean forms of energy. We have learned the hard way more than once that when it comes to nuclear energy the risks involved do not just effect one country. It is time that we acknowledge that we really are just one world and that we are all connected. Let's not let history repeat itself one more time!