Nuclear waste | Nuclear waste transports to Ahaus are becoming more concrete

Further permits for nuclear waste transports to the interim storage facility in Ahaus, North Rhine-Westphalia, are imminent and are causing political uproar. Specifically, this concerns road transports from the storage facility in Jülich and from the FRM II research reactor in Garching near Munich to the interim storage facility in Ahaus, North Rhine-Westphalia, as announced by the Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management (BASE) in Berlin.

According to BASE, transports should be possible from the fourth quarter of the current year. However, this will have to be decided by the respective state authorities once the permits have been granted. Heavy goods transports by road are planned. Two transports have been requested from Garching. From Jülich there are 152 individual transports , but these could be bundled. There are four suitable transport vehicles, each of which can transport one container at a time. The Federal Office emphasized that there is little leeway in the licensing decisions: If all the rules are followed, the permits would have to be granted. There are currently no final repositories in Germany in which radioactive nuclear waste can be safely stored for hundreds of thousands of years. Instead, there are 16 interim storage facilities, one of which is in Ahaus.

The Left Party in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) is strongly critical of the planned transports and is calling on Minister-President Hendrik Wüst (CDU) to pull out all the stops to prevent the threatened nuclear transports from Jülich to Ahaus. "The window of opportunity to prevent the dangerous, unnecessary, and expensive nuclear transports across North Rhine-Westphalia" is closing, explained Hubertus Zdebel, nuclear policy spokesperson for the Left Party in North Rhine-Westphalia. According to the Left Party, the Castor transports through the state are in clear contradiction to the coalition agreement between the CDU and the Greens in North Rhine-Westphalia for the years 2022 to 2027. The agreement states: "We are committed to minimizing nuclear transports. This also applies to transports from other federal states." In the case of the fuel elements stored in Jülich, this means that we are pushing forward with the option of building a new interim storage facility in Jülich." In consultation with the state executive committee in North Rhine-Westphalia, Die Linke has submitted a corresponding motion to the Bundestag, which has already been discussed in first reading. Specifically, Die Linke is demanding, among other things, that the federal government take all necessary measures to ensure that responsibility for the long-term storage and preparation of nuclear waste for final disposal remains with the producers in Jülich.

The anti-nuclear initiative Sofa Münster also sharply criticizes BASE's actions, citing "enormous pressure." The initiative views the announcement that lawsuits have no suspensive effect because "immediate execution" is permitted as a "political threat." The organization is demanding that the conservative-green North Rhine-Westphalia state government and the SPD-led Federal Environment Ministry "finally engage in goal-oriented talks to avert this insane, multi-year nuclear transport tsunami."

Even within the ranks of the Green Party in North Rhine-Westphalia, there is strong criticism. Tim Achtermeyer, chairman of the state association of the Green Party, described the planned Castor transports as "politically incorrect and dangerous" and sharply criticized the Federal Environment Minister: "The Federal Environment Minister is becoming a Castor Carsten. He must not approve the transports and must ensure that the Jülich interim storage facility finally receives a permit again." The Greens warn that the transports are creating facts before it is clear where the nuclear waste will go in the long term. "The federal government must urgently provide a comprehensive interim storage concept before it creates facts by transporting massive amounts of Castor containers across half of North Rhine-Westphalia," Achtermeyer said.

Next Wednesday, the issue is scheduled to be discussed again – albeit not publicly – in the state parliament's Economic Affairs Committee. North Rhine-Westphalia's Green Party nuclear minister, Mona Neubaur, remains tight-lipped. While time for political discussions and solutions is becoming increasingly limited, the protest is forming with a clear demand: The Castor waste avalanche must be stopped before it begins. dpa/nd