It took anti-nuclear activists less than a day to collected 25,000 signatures from Germans worried that the newly-elected conservative government will delay closing Germany's 17 nuclear plants, they say.

The letter writers warned that if the government delays the closures, there will be "massive protests" from the anti-nuclear energy movement.

Sunday's parliamentary election has added a new dimension to Germany's ongoing debate about phasing out its use of nuclear energy. Chancellor Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) have said they're interested in changing a law which would require Germany's nuclear plants to close by 2020. Both the conservatives and their new business-friendly coalition partners, the FDP, cite concerns about dwindling energy supplies, high oil prices and global warming to justify their push to hold on to nuclear energy.

Activists threaten protests

"It's very rare to have such high participation in an online appeal in such a short amount of time,” Christoph Bautz, the head of Campact, one of the groups that organized the letter-writing campaign said in a statement.

"If the [CDU] and FDP really want to herald the renaissance of nuclear energy in Germany, they're going to experience a comeback of the anti-nuclear energy movement," he warned.

Bautz said Tuesday that the campaigners planned to continue collecting signatures in the upcoming days.

Many Germans were turned off to nuclear energy after the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986. And shipments of radioactive waste regularly attract huge protests.

Germany's 17 reactors currently supply around 23 percent of its electricity, with coal and gas producing more than 50 percent and renewables such as solar and wind power some 17 percent.

th/AP/dpa
Editor: Nancy Isenson