empower networks
against power networks
Immediate shutdown of all nuclear power plants and of the controlling class world -wide!
Three years ago, a first impulse within the anti-nuclear-movement appeared, not to continue focussing only on atomic power plants but to deal with the topic of energy in general. Soon, BUKO was appointed to be an important dialogue partner, the result of this was a panel on energy with numerous workshops treating the situation e.g. in Brazil, China, Venezuela, Nigeria and El Salvador. In this year, it is our aim to have a closer look at the other side of the pipeline – the largest users of produced raw materials, the G8 countries.
At least since autumn 2006, when half of Europe was hit by an energy blackout caused by a high-tension transmission line failure in Germany, the topic of power grids attracted high awareness in the media. People who attended the energy panel of the latest BUKO will see one of the main propositions confirmed: who owns the power system, has the power. And this is based to the fact that it would be nearly impossible to make use of most of the energy sources and electricity itself in a sense of capitalism without owning infrastructures (power grids, pipelines etc.) connected to grids.
Only these power grids form electricity into a market value and thus into an object of capitalistic profitability. The international power grids enable utilities as E.on, EDF and RWE to make high profits. That is why securing these infrastructures is one of the main points of the agenda about global energy security which was negotiated on the G8 summit in St. Petersburg. But vulnerable points of these power infrastructures allow it to resist to the prevailing (energy) politics. We also want to discuss the possibilities to interlink our resistance, where the branches of the network are separated from each other, why they are separated and where we are talking about the same. British groups, for instance, massively claim to decentralize energy. In Germany, this claim was up to now not postulated in this measure. Perhaps this claim pursues the existing relations of power more than the main claim of the German anti – nuclear movement to shut down all nuclear power plants immediately.
At the BUKO 30 we would like to give an overview about the situation in the field of energy politics in the G8 countries. Who are the players, who represents whose interests, where does resistance emerge? Is energy saved, is electricity stolen or is it collectively produced, without affecting others? We are looking forward and would like to invite you to open the discussion with us, thinking about how to break the existing power networks in the field of energy.
Energy : schedule
On Friday afternoon we start with a short introduction into the plan of action of the G8 concerning global energy security and into the energy paper of Merkel´s Presidency of the European Council. The energy panel will take place a whole day long: at first a short introduction into the topic and the various workshops, followed by studies of the respective G8 countries (if possible, with nationals from these countries) and finally, we want to resume all similarities and differences and discuss about resistance and networking.