TO USE OR NOT TO USE NUCLEAR-POWER

Against the background of the public debate about the future of energy supply which, for a long time already, has been part of the collectiv e battle of ideologies, the Academy for Technology Assessment conducte d the ''Climatologically Sustainable Energy Supply in Baden-Wurttember g'' Project in order to study whether the envisaged reductions of CO2 emissions can be reached despite different societal concepts for the f uture, or whether the goals of climate protection require specific fut ure developments. For this purpose, energy scenarios were developed wh ich - in contrast to customary approaches - were derived from societal models. These models were designed so that, on the one hand, they emb odied the main lines of the societal discussion about the future of en ergy supply while encompassing the whole range of that discussion, on the other hand. The result showed that the goals of climate protection can be attained also with highly divergent concepts for the future, a nd that no preference for any specific future development can be deriv ed from the climate protection goals. If these goals are to be pursued seriously, then the central conflict of society in the foreseeable pe riod of the next 25 to 30 years, under the conditions prevailing in th e state of Baden-Wurttemberg, will not be the issue of nuclear power v ersus renewable energies, but rather the dichotomy of an expanded use of nuclear power, on the one hand, and the willingness to give up, or accept changes in behavior, on the other hand.