The Germany government has already begun procedures to shut down all of the country's nuclear reactors. A committee called to make a plan for the country's nuclear waste problem has said it may take until next century.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
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In 2011, Chancellor's Angela Merkel's government announced that all of Germany's nuclear reactors would be slowly phased out and shut down by 2022, leaving the country with a pressing need to find a storage facility for its atomic waste. However, a two-year investigation by top scientists, industry leaders and representatives of civil society announced on Tuesday that such a facility may not be ready until the next century.
Presenting their final report, even the decades-long timetable was described by leading committee member Michael Müller as "ambitious."
The panel had hoped to arrive at a solution where a facility would be ready by 2050, but Müller said such a schedule was logistically impossible.
The first challenge is to find an appropriate site. One possible place is the controversial, and small, waste facility in Gorleben in Lower-Saxony, which has long been the flashpoint of intense confrontation between police and anti-nuclear activists. Though Müller said that other sites were also being looked at, and there had been no decision on Gorleben as of yet.
Governments 'irresponsible'
The backlash, not only from Germany's strong environmental movement but also from the press, was swift and clear. Jochen Stay of the anti-nuclear group "Ausgestrahlt" accused the commission of having "delayed" making any real decision.
"The recommendations they've made are so vague that they could justify choosing any site," Stay said.
Newspaper Badisches Tagblatt claimed that state governments who refused to even entertain the idea of a storage facility in their region, especially those of Saxony and Bavaria, were being "politically irresponsible" by employing "St. Florian's principle," a German term of phrase which means to avoid responsibility by handing it to someone else.
Another daily, the Flensburger Tageblatt, accused the government of "putting itself in conflict with the interest of its citizens," by not having conceived of a storage plan before it began to phase out nuclear power. The storage options for the interim are not safe, the paper argued.
Radioactive waste storage in Germany
A newly-formed commission will start working on a plan for a permanent nuclear waste storage site in Germany soon. The issue is something that has divided the country for decades.
Image: dapd
A new way forward?
It has divided Germany for decades but now, it seems, an end could be in sight. A newly-formed commission will soon start working on a plan for a permanent nuclear waste storage site in Germany. So far, Gorleben, in Lower Saxony has been considered the country's number one proposed site, despite constant protests from environmentalists and locals.
Image: dapd
A temporary solution
Dry cask storage containers, also sometimes known as castors, are left to cool in the current temporary storage facility near Gorleben. They contain spent nuclear fuel rods, stored in an inert gas for safety reasons. Their radioactivity will take many thousands of years to dissipate.
Image: GNS Gesellschaft für Nuklear-Service mbH
The current problem
There is currently no permanent storage facility for the radioactive byproducts of nuclear energy anywhere in the world, only facilities treated as temporary solutions. The Gorleben temporary storage site also currently holds waste imported from France, Europe's largest nuclear power producer, with the delivery trains frequently a site of public protests.
Image: GNS Gesellschaft für Nuklear-Service mbH
Moving waste around
A container with radioactive waste is moved to Gorleben in the German state of Lower Saxony. Often the transportation takes place at night, in order to minimise disruption and attention in the communities that the shipment is passing through. The event still remains a consistent headline-grabber in Germany.
Image: dapd
Protesters raise attention
Protesters dress up at a protest to blockade a transport of nuclear waste into Gorleben. A 2012 survey showed that some 40 percent of Germans say that they wouldn't want to have a permanent nuclear waste storage site near their home.
Image: AP
Re-using the salt mine
A salt mine near Gorleben is currently being investigated as a permanent storage facility for nuclear waste. Concerns about radioactivity moving into the water table are just one of the reasons why local residents are unhappy about the site being considered.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Environment minister in the spotlight
He's been in office for less than a year but German Environment Minister Peter Altmeier has been under consistent pressure to get results on the issue of a permanent storage facility for nuclear waste. At the same time he's trying to push forward Germany's changeover to renewable energy, known domestically as the 'Energiewende'.
Image: DW/Heiner Kiesel
The mistakes of the past
Gorleben isn't the only nuclear waste storage site in Germany. Federal parliament recently approved a new regulation to clear the salt mine Asse II of 125,000 barrels of radioactive waste, although the project is yet to begin. The site, near Braunschweig, was used in the 1960s and 1970s to store waste from nuclear power plants. It is now completely sealed up.
Image: picture-alliance/ dpa
Concerns about drinking water
In this archive photo, a worker takes a sample of dripping water in the Asse mine. Some think that the water here could be contaminated with leaking radioactive waste from rusting barrels of waste and for that reason a cleanout needs to be sped up. Visitors are now able to visit the site but are equipped with geiger counters.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Nuclear power shutdown by 2020
All nuclear power plants in Germany are due to be shut down by 2020. The Neckarwestheim plant was closed down in 2011, following the catastrophe in Fukushima. Now, however, one of the power plants on the site is back functioning again. What ultimately happens to the spent fuel rods from the facility will stay uncertain until Germany settles on a permanent waste dump site.
