RWE to operate first on-site nuclear waste storage
Date: 11-Nov-02
Country: GERMANY
The approval is the first for one of 12 such sites which will hold German nuclear waste for up to 40 years prior to it going into a final repository.
Under a nuclear consensus deal between the German government and power industry in 2000, utilities said they would build the sites to avoid the unpopular atomic waste transports.
"KKW Lippe-Ems, majority-owned by RWE, today received the approval for an interim site at the Emsland nuclear reactor in Lingen...from the federal authority for the protection against radiation (BfS)...," RWE said in a statement.
"The storage of (CASTOR) nuclear storage containers will start in due course."
"The facility will help to secure the disposal of waste from Emsland until the government has met its obligation to provide a permanent repository."
"Construction of other interim sites will be probably be completed by 2005."
Construction of the 25 million euros ($25.28 million) site which can hold 130 CASTOR containers took 18 months.
A permanent storage site has yet to be chosen for use after Germany shuts all its nuclear plants, which under the consensus deal is due by the early 2020s.
The utilities have to build the interim sites at costs of around 25 to 50 million euros each, although central storage sites at Gorleben and Ahaus could hold all of the nuclear waste until final decommissioning of Germany's 19 nuclear plants.
But the costs to police transports to the two central sites exploded in the past because of large demonstrations by anti-nuclear protestors, who cite safety risks.
Some groups say they aim to disrupt transports in order to force operators to pull out of nuclear power production sooner.
Utilities may have nuclear waste reprocessed abroad, but this covers only 10 percent of present waste volumes and may only take place until 2005.
