[majewsky]

As a German, I think Fukushima was a turning point because a lot of people believed the utilities when they insisted that "Our reactors are safe! Chernobyl was just the result of bad Soviet-era quality/safety standards." Then Fukushima showed a highly-developed industrialized nation standing in front of a cataclysmic dumpster fire of a reactor, going through increasingly desparate attempts at putting out the fire. Sort of like with Deepwater Horizon, but this one hit closer to home because Germany already had this collective angst about nuclear reactors in the back of their heads from the 80s, albeit shoved into the subconscious in the meantime.