When the specialist nuclear transport vessel Pacific Grebe recently docked at Nordenham port in north-western Germany it was met with vocal protests by anti-nuclear activists. Further protests are planned along the presumed route of a train that will transport the waste containers to a temporary storage facility at the closed down Isar nuclear power plant site. While the route is not publicised for security reasons protests are anticipated in the cities of Bremen and Göttingen.
The ship, operated by Nuclear Transport Solutions (NTS), was carrying seven flasks of high-level radioactive nuclear waste from the UK’s Sellafield site and was the second of three planned shipments. The first transport of six flasks of high-level waste (HLW) from the UK to the now shuttered Biblis nuclear power plant took place in 2020.
Germany’s nuclear energy policy has, of course, long been ridiculed by those who believe nuclear power has a critical role to play in meeting the climate change challenge. In this context the nuclear withdrawal policy is even more baffling considering the country has turned to lignite-burning power plants in order to meet its energy needs. But that aside, the irony of the protests at these latest nuclear shipments is that the waste is Germany’s own – a result of reprocessing fuel elements from decommissioned German nuclear power plants.
Much to chagrin of the anti-nuclear lobby, similar shipments of reprocessed waste have been delivered from the La Hague in France, with Orano completing the 13th and final rail shipment of HLW to Philippsburg in November last year. Indeed, more than 5,000 tonnes of German fuel was processed at La Hague plant up to 2008.
Gesellschaft für Nuklear Service (GNS) notes that the reprocessing of these waste materials involves vitrification. The material is mixed with liquid silicate glass and poured into cylindrical stainless-steel containers, which are then placed in cast iron and stainless-steel containers, each of which weighs more than 100 tonnes. Tthrough extensive testing they have been proven to provide strong shielding and safety under even extreme conditions. While it must be acknowledged that a solution for the permanent disposal of HLW remains elusive, temporary storage of vitrified and encapsulated waste at existing German nuclear sites could certainly be described as an acceptable approach to resolving the management of Germany’s own radioactive waste until a more suitable and long-term site can be determined and developed.
That though is not enough for the protesters and once again raises the profile of those who argue nuclear technologies are inherently unsafe and should be avoided at all costs, even if that necessitates the use of fossil fuels for longer than necessary. And this perception is enlarged not just in Germany but elsewhere too. When much of the world is now recognising the invaluable role that nuclear power will play in achieving net zero – and many have pledged to triple nuclear capacity in response – it begs the question of how that will be possible when even returning a nation’s own nuclear materials in a safe condition elicits such a visceral reaction?
One solution may be to mount a concerted effort to educate the population more broadly concerning nuclear power, its risks and opportunities and how those risks balance against issues like climate change. The increasingly obvious and alarming impact of climate change presents a colossal opportunity to change the prevailing narrative that has dogged the nuclear industry for decades. Despite this opportunity it will clearly take a huge and sustained investment to overcome decades of embedded anti-nuclear folk law with real knowledge and such costs must inevitably fall on hard-pressed government budgets. But given almost all nuclear projects are underwritten by state finances in one way or another, it’s a policy that may actually pay off in terms of energy costs alone. The route to address fear is always understanding – it’s time to start investing in the future.
