NINA NETZER AND JOCHEN STEINHILBER(EDS.)| THE END OF NUCLEAR ENERGY? This development shows that it is difficult to prevent nuclear weapons from being built and that there is a great likelihood that more and more countries will obtain nuclear weapons capabilities in the future. When a nuclear infrastructure is in place and the basic material for weapons is being produced in facilities for enrichment or reprocessing, in military reac­tors, dual-purpose reactors or fast breeder-reactors, then it is merely a question of political will and willingness to invest in nuclear technology which decides whether a country is able to develop nuclear weapons or not. 6. Conclusion We have seen that the much-discussed global renaissance of nuclear energy would appear in actual practice to have failed to materialise as a result of economic and environ­mental misgivings as well as various security risks. Have nuclear power plants reached a dead-end or are they nec­essary as a result of the finiteness of fossil energy and climate change – 25 years after Chernobyl and following the events in Fukushima? And instead of this is it fore­seeable that there will be a shift from Western to Eastern Europe over the long term, with the long-heralded re­naissance of nuclear power ultimately taking place there? The history of nuclear energy has shown that a rethink­ing has usually taken place in many countries following major nuclear accidents. 26 April 2011 was the 25 th anniversary of the meltdown in Chernobyl. This disas­ter, which took place in the Ukraine in early 1986, ac­celerated the phase-out of nuclear energy in a host of Western industrialised countries, beginning in the USA in the 1970s. Following the meltdown in the Three Mile Island 2 reactor in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1979, al­most two thirds of American nuclear power plant pro­jects were cancelled. Nuclear programs in Austria and Denmark were put on ice in Europe even before the di­saster in Chernobyl. After 1986, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden and Germany resolved to phase-out nuclear energy and have in part already done so. There is a nuclear moratorium in Spain and Switzerland. This contrasts with developments in Eastern Europe: In the wake of Chernobyl the anti-nuclear power movement in the Soviet Union attained a freeze on nuclear projects and a nuclear moratorium during Glasnost and Perestroika, but following the end of the Cold War technocrats in the energy sector were able to resume old programmes and projects. Central and Eastern European states assiduously continued along the path of nuclear technology following national independence and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Only in Poland was the construction of a nuclear pow­er plant in Żarnowiec, west of Gdansk, stopped by a local referendum.While it was assumed in the 1970s that nuclear power plants would have a life expectancy of 25 years, the operating times of nuclear power plants were extended to more than 40 years towards the end of the 20 th century, ini­tially in the USA and then in other countries. On top of this, the term»bridging technology« was coined: nuclear pow­er plants were to run longer, in this way easing the transi­tion to renewable technologies. The extension of lifetimes for German nuclear power plants adopted in a nuclear act amendment by the German Bundestag in the autumn of 2010 would have extended the predominance of big power plants and prevented the expansion of small, decentralised, environmentally compatible power plants, which are much easier to operate with renewable energies. As first Euro ­pean country Switzerland announced plans to phase out nuclear power, in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear acci­dent in Japan. The Swiss government decided on 26 May 2011 that the country‘s five nuclear power stations would close gradually over the next 20 years. And Germany decid­ed to phase-out stepwise all remaining 17 nuclear pow­er plants until 2022, starting with eight reactors in 2011. References Fritsche, U.R.; Rausch, L.; Schmidt, K. (2007): Treibhausgasemissio­nen und Vermeidungskosten der nuklearen, fossilen und erneuerbaren Strombereitstellung. Arbeitspapier des Öko-Instituts, März 2007.(http:// www.oeko.de/oekodoc/318/2007-008-de.pdf). Gielecki, M.& Hewlett, J. (1994): Commercial Nuclear Power in the United States: Problems and Prospects, US Energy Information Adminis­tration, August 1994. Kollert, R.& Donderer, R. (1994), Klimarisiken durch radioaktives Kryp­ton 85 aus der Kernspaltung, Bremen. Mez, L., Schneider, M., Thomas, S.(eds.) (2009): International Per­spectives on Energy Policy and the Role of Nuclear Power, Brentwood: Multi-Science Publishing. Mez, L., de Haan, G., Gerhold, L.(Hrsg.) (2010): Atomkraft als Risiko. Analysen und Konsequenzen nach Tschernobyl, Frankfurt/M.: Peter Lang. NuclearEnergy Institute (2008): White Paper. The Cost of New Generat­ing Capacity in Perspective, Washington DC, August 2008. Schneider, M., Froggatt, A., Thomas, S. (2011): The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2010-2011. Nuclear Power in a Post-Fukushima World, Paris, Berlin, Washington, April 2011. Storm van Leeuwen, J.W. (2007): CO 2 emissions from nuclear power, in: Barnaby, F. and Kemp, J.(Eds.): Secure Energy? Civil Nuclear Power, Security and Global Warming. Foreword by Jürgen Trittin. Oxford Re­search Group, Briefing Paper March 2007, 40-44(http://www.oxfordre ­searchgroup.org.uk/publications/briefing_papers/secureenergy.php) . Traube, K. (2004): Renaissance der Atomenergie?, in: Solarzeitalter 4/2004, Dezember. 22