Agency Report –
A ship containing radioactive nuclear waste docked in Germany early on Tuesday, amid protests by anti-nuclear activists.
The purpose-built vessel arrived at the Nordenham port in north-western Germany at 6 am (0400 GMT), a spokesman for the GNS nuclear services company told dpa.
The nuclear waste was left over from the reprocessing of fuel elements from decommissioned German nuclear power plants at the Sellafield site in the United Kingdom.
After being shipped on the Pacific Grebe from the northern English port of Barrow-in-Furness, the waste is due to be transported to an interim storage facility at a former nuclear plant in the southern German state of Bavaria.
While Germany phased out nuclear power after the Fukushima disaster in 2011, it still faces the question of how and where to store radioactive waste.
Nuclear waste is typically transported in dry casks, usually steel cylinders. The process is known in Germany as CASTOR, an acronym derived from the English phrase “cask for storage and transport of radioactive material.”
The issue has long proved controversial across the country, with several protests being held in recent days ahead of the arrival of the ship from the UK.
A vigil is due to be held in Nordenham later on Tuesday by a group called “Stop Castor,” with further events due to be held in Bremen and Göttingen.
The radioactive waste is being transferred to a train in the Nordenham harbour, where tests are to be carried out to ensure legal radiation limits are not exceeded.
The train’s route to the Isar storage facility, north-east of Munich, is not being publicized out of security reasons.
Seven more containers of nuclear waste are due to be returned from Sellafield and stored in Germany.
