Energy Management throughout European Union after Fukusima disaster

German Chancellor Angela Merkel spent four days in early March 2011, like many around the world, watching the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, unfold on television. These events caused Merkel, a reasoned supporter of nuclear energy, to make a radical change in direction. On March 15, Merkel announced that Germany was shutting down seven nuclear power plants immediately and would decommission the remainder by 2022. “We can’t simply continue as normal,” Merkel was quoted in Der Spiegel. “The events in Japan teach us that something that by all scientific benchmarks was considered impossible can actually occur.” But Chancellor Merkel told Agence France-Presse: “We believe we as a country can be a trailblazer for a new age of renewable energy sources. We can be the first major industrialized country that achieves the transition to renewable energy with all the opportunities – for exports, development, technology, jobs – it carries with it.” That Germany is willing to be the world’s laboratory for transitioning to a non-nuclear and low-carbon energy regime may be a good thing. But the rest of Europe still worries the plan may leave the EU’s industrial engine without the necessary fuel to run efficiently, thereby hurting economic growth and prosperity for the entire continent while undermining energy security by increasing dependence on imported natural gas.