After the Fukushima accident, the federal government set up an Ethics Commission for a Safe Energy Supply. It began its work on 4 April 2011. Its seventeen members included Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Bishop Ulrich Fischer and the sociologist Ulrich Beck.
The report was handed over on 30 May 2011. It said that reducing the risks to purely technical aspects would not meet the demand for ganzheitliches Denken, holistic thinking. “Ökologische, wirtschaftliche, gesellschaftliche und technische Risiken sind zudem eng miteinander verzahnt.” Ecological, economic, social and technical risks are closely interlocked.
The commission concluded that, with the measures it proposed, Germany could complete its exit from nuclear power within a decade.