Re: Germany and Japan (no, not another military history posting)

[Franz Schoenhofer <schoenho@via.at>]

At 09:12 24.12.1998 -0600, you wrote:
>A couple of comments about Sandy's two most recent postings:
>
>First of all, I'm very glad that she 

Sandy is a "he".



provides the news articles she does, 
>and sincerely hope that anonymous busybody won't convice her to
>stop providing them.

I remember that this is not the first time that Sandy was exposed to such
pressure, but I think that his news contain a high percentage of
information which is even of interest for a European. I am very astonished
that obviously it is not understood by many persons in the US that the
European Union is a fact and that it is a very important economic factor
and that therefore one should pay a little attention to the development in
Europe. Simply to say that the US is the greatest and nobody should "mess
with us" is naiv and shows a high degree of misunderstanding of current
days politics. 



>
>About the dismissal of the German nuclear safety board;  does anyone
>know if they are going to be replaced?  

What I read in Austrian papers and saw on TV was, that the German Green
minister argued that both the Radiation Protection Commission and the
"Reactor Commission" have to be dismissed, because most of the members are
pro-nuclear. Please, read this sentence once again to understand what is
going on in Germany. If you still cannot understand it, I cannot help you,
but it is commonplace in Europe that pro-nuclears are very close to
"criminals" and anti-nuclears save the world. Our US-collegues should be
grateful to be informed by Sandy about what is going on in the world. From
some postings it seems to me that you have a similar situation yet in the
US, but I am now so sure.


I would think that even a rabid
>anti-nuclear activist would be able to see that you are going to need such
>a body if you plan to start shutting down all the reactors within your
>borders.

Sorry, I think you are wrong. Do not expect any reasonable thinking from
the European anti-nuclear activists. Do you expect is fom US activists?

  Perhaps the plan is to replace them with Green appointees?

This has happened in Austria already many years ago. The Radiation
Protection Commission has not been called for many years. Another
"Commission for Nuclear Questions" has been installed instead and this is a
"green" domain. A lot of research money is allocated for this group.....
but I do not want to go into details, which everybody reading that can
guess him/herself.

The decisive question is "money". The young red-green government in Germany
expects the owners of NPPs to shut down their plants at no costs to the
government. I do not even believe that they really expect it, it is a show
for the public. This is an illusion. Nobody knows where to take the
additional electrical power from to substitute the missing nuclear power.
The attempts of the Swedish government to shut down the first nuclear power
plant has failed completely because of financial question. (Björn Cedervall
could perhaps give us an update on the current situation in Sweden!)

When will you, dear RADSAFERs, finally understand that nuclear power is not
a question of radiation safety, of doses to the population, of risk, but
that it is a play of money and politics. We radiation protection people
play a very minor role to support one very small part of the game and our
role can be easily forgotten when mass media come in. And it is forgotten. 

Welcome to a new thread!

Franz



Franz Schoenhofer
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e-mail: schoenho@via.at

Office:
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