Germany
authorities are contemplating the return of unused nuclear fuel kept in 152
containers to the United States. A storage permit at the former Jülich research
facility in western Germany is nearing expiry.
Deutsche Welle, 8 July 2014
The German
DPA news agency said on Tuesday that Chancellor Angela Merkel's government was
considering the "likely option" of sending leftover nuclear fuel back
to the US. The fuel would go specifically to the Savannah River reprocessing
site in South Carolina.
In the wake
of Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, Germany reaffirmed its plan to
phase out German nuclear power generation by 2022 and switch to renewable
methods such as solar and wind power generation.
Last week,
the atomic supervisory agency of Germany's regional state of North
Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) ordered the removal of the fuel - 288,161
tennis-ball-sized units - from interim storage at Jülich by September.
The small
but controversial "pebble" reactor, located between Aachen and
Cologne, operated from 1967 until it was deactivated in 1988 - in a period when
industry decided in favor of other nuclear plant designs.
In April,
the German news magazine Spiegel reported that the dismantling of the Jülich
"pebble" reactor was difficult because it was contaminated with
cesium and strontium, making it one of the highest ever contaminated reactors.
Storage
permit nearing expiry
Approval
for the current on-site storage expires on July 31.
DPA said
Germany's federal research ministry was instrumental in the April signing of a
statement-of-intent with the US Department of Energy for the fuel's return to
the US.
The
Department of Energy told DPA that the US was not obligated to take back the
Jülich fuel but could do so to prevent the proliferation of nuclear-capable
material.
'Systematic
secrecy,' say Greens
On Tuesday,
the spokeswoman of nuclear issues among opposition Greens in the German
Bundestag parliament, Sylvia Kotting-Uhl, accused the federal research ministry
of practicising systematic secrecy on the issue.
Greenpeace
nuclear expert Heinz Smital said shipping the fuel would be too risky and would
undermine a cross-party consensus turned into law in January that Germany must
find its own geologically suitable disposal site rather than using one abroad.
The order
to vacate the interim storage site [at Jülich] was an unlawful attempt by
Germany to "discard its responsibility," Smital said.
US watchdog
rejects Jülich leftovers
DPA quoted
Tom Clements of the Organization Savannah River Site Watch as saying that it
did not want foreign atomic waste in South Carolina. The "correct way for
Germany" was to use its law to find its own local means of disposal, he
said.
In 2010,
former German environment minister Norbert Röttgen stopped the transfer of 951
fuel rods from a former East German research reactor to Majak in Russia. Those
rods remain at another NRW interim storage site, Ahaus.
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