R Andreas Kraemer Interview

R Andreas Kraemer - Topic: Costs and Risks, German Anti-Nuclear Movement, Nuclear Waste

Interview Recorded 2012

R. Andreas Kraemer, director and CEO of Ecologic Institute in Berlin, discusses the economic risks associated with nuclear power production. He offers deep insight on how the Fukushima accident has demonstrated these risks and on the public reaction to this catastrophe in Germany, France, and Great Britain. In particular, he focuses on the history and present of the antinuclear movement in Germany and on the decision to phase out the use of nuclear power in the country. His analysis of the effects of this policy on Germany and Europe is coupled with concrete ideas on how pressing problems, such as nuclear waste, should be solved.

Andreas Kraemer has been the director of Ecological Institute, an independent think tank which performs applied environmental research, since its foundation in 1995. Recently he became chairman of Ecologic Institute's branch in Washington and he has been particularly active in strengthening constructive cooperation across borders on environment, climate and energy security. In the past he has worked with various policy institutes such as the Science Center Berlin (WZB), the Research Unit Environmental Policy of the Free University of Berlin (FFU) and the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP). Mr. Kraemer studied environmental engineering at the Institute fuer Technischen Umweltschutz of the Technische Universität Berlin and at the Université de Paris Diderot. He is therefore an expert on sustainable development, resource management, foreign affairs and environmental policy.