Germany's parliament voted Thursday to end the country's entire nuclear power industry by 2022, a move that could also bring closure to three decades of violent protests and political controversy about the use of atomic power, according to dpa. Two opposition parties supported Chancellor Angela Merkel's centre-right coalition in the key ballot, for a 513-79 vote on the bill that sets closure dates for all 17 nuclear plants. There were eight abstentions in the vote in the Bundestag, Germany's parliament. Germany will be the first major nuclear-powered nation to have completely renounced the technology, dismantling all its plants. Some of the sites will be reused to build coal-fired and natural-gas-fired electricity plants. The March 11 tsunami in Japan, which caused a breakdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, was the last straw that swung public opinion in Germany against nuclear-generated electricity. For decades, anti-nuclear activists have battled riot police outside power plants and nuclear dumps. When Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) extended the nuclear phase-out date last year from 2022 to 2036, it was dubbed the "atomic party." In March, ahead of key regional elections, Merkel performed a U-turn, and restored the old expiry date. By 2022, Germany must gradually build wind turbines and plants fired by natural gas to replace the reactors, which provided 23 per cent of the country's electricity until last year. Eight reactors have already been powered down, and other nine have been given individual closure deadlines. More votes followed, on a 700-page package of bills to authorize vast subsidies to improve home insulation and encourage renewable energy sources. The government says it can raise the renewable fraction, mainly using wind and solar, to 35 per cent by 2020, up from the current 19 per cent of electricity supplies. But a think tank, RWI, has suggested that only 27 per cent is realistic by that point. "This is a great day in Germany," said Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen, noting that - after more than 30 years of controversy and unbridgeable divisions - the parliament was voting through a consensus position on energy. Germany had the most ambitious plan among the world's industrialized nations to convert to renewable energy, he said. "They're saying abroad, if any country can do it, it'll be the Germans," the Christian Democratic minister said.
