Nuclear waste: Castor transport should roll to Bavaria

At dawn, the “Pacific Grebe” reached the port of Nordenham. On board: Highly radioactive atomic waste in seven Castor containers. They are remnants of the German Atomic Age. All nuclear power plants in this country have now been switched off, but the waste is still there. The Castor containers are on the way from Great Britain to Bavaria, where they are stored.

The transport had long been planned under strict confidentiality. Last Wednesday, the special ship left the port in Barrow-in furness. On Tuesday, it was scheduled to schedule in Lower Saxony at 6:00 a.m., as a spokesman for the Society for Nuclear Service (GNS) of the German Press Agency said. According to the police, there were no incidents. The harbor area was secured by heavily armed emergency services.

In the afternoon there should be a rally by opponents of nuclear power in Nordenham, and demonstrations and vigils took place in several cities in the days before. According to an alliance of anti-atom initiatives, more are planned.

The containers come from the English processing plant Sellafield and are reloaded from the ship to a train in Nordenham, which transports them to the intermediate camp at the location of the Isar nuclear power plant in Niederaichbach (district of Landshut). A location for a future nuclear waste endage has not yet been found.

According to GNS, details on the route of the transport and the schedule are not published for security reasons.

In the morning, the first Castor container was reloaded to a wagon using a crane. Expert measurements were carried out, the GNS said. It must be demonstrated that the legally prescribed radiation limit values ​​- technical language: limit values ​​of the local dose performance (ODL) – are reliably observed. Corresponding measurements had already been made before the transport started in Sellafield.

The association radiated that the German intermediate camps do not offer sufficient protection for highly radioactive waste. Spokesman Helge Bauer said it was clear that the nuclear waste could not stay in Niederaichbach. “Every Castor transport carries enormous risks. Nuclear waste should therefore only be transported once in a so-called repository.” This also applies to German nuclear waste from the reworking abroad, “of course the Federal Republic is obliged to withdraw”.

Until 2005 it was common practice that some of the fuel elements used in Germany were brought to the recovery system Sellafield and La Hague in France, as the GNS explained. The Federal Republic has undertaken to withdraw the nuclear waste caused by international law.

The intermediate camp is located at the location of the former Isar nuclear power plant in the Landshut district. Block I was switched off in 2011, Block II was removed from the network in 2023. Both systems are in dismantling.

Seven other containers from Sellafield, which are temporarily stored in Brokdorf (Schleswig-Holstein), have to be withdrawn. Six containers from Sellafield had already been brought to Biblis (Hessen) in 2020.

According to the information, the return of nuclear waste from La Hague was completed with the transport of four Castor containers in 2024 to Philippsburg (Baden-Württemberg). Between 1995 and 2011, more than 100 containers were brought to the intermediate camp in Gorleben (Lower Saxony).