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Police officers secure a castor transport on the way to the interim storage facility in Gorleben (photo from November 2010)
Photo: Marcus Brandt / dpa
While the debate over possible locations for a nuclear waste repository in Germany has flared up again, the security authorities are preparing for protests against a new Castor transport.
According to SPIEGEL information, a total of six Castor containers with radioactive waste from the British reprocessing plant in Sellafield are to be brought to Germany in the first week of November - first by ship to Nordenham in Lower Saxony and then by train to the nuclear power plant in Biblis, Hesse.
In view of the current debate, the authorities fear that opponents of nuclear power will protest against the transport with demonstrations and violent disruptive actions.
Protests are already being mobilized on relevant websites.
In the past, especially during Castor transports to the interim storage facility in Gorleben in Lower Saxony, violent riots, sit-ins and acts of sabotage occurred on the railway line.
Participating federal states mobilize thousands of police officers
After the arrival of the Castors, the transport in November is to be carried out entirely by rail by ship.
The nuclear power plant in Biblis has a rail connection, so reloading to road transport as in Gorleben is not necessary.
Nevertheless, the federal states of Lower Saxony and Hesse are already mobilizing thousands of police officers to secure the delicate transport.
Securing the route is complex.
In the past, opponents of nuclear power had repeatedly sabotaged railway lines or chained themselves to the tracks in order to prevent passage.
Preventing such actions on the 500 kilometer stretch from Nordenham to Biblis poses a challenge for the authorities, according to security circles.
Officially, none of the federal or state authorities involved wanted to confirm the internal plans, as they do not want to give nuclear power opponents any clues for their protest plans.
A total of 26 castors with medium and high radioactive material from German nuclear power plants in Sellafield and the French reprocessing plant in La Hague are ready to be brought back to Germany.
The retrieval of the radioactive material that had previously been used in German nuclear power plants had been on the agenda for a long time.
It was clear since 2013 that the castors should no longer be transported to the interim storage facility in Gorleben that was actually intended for this purpose.
But finding suitable accommodation was difficult.
The green environment ministers of Baden-Württemberg and Schleswig-Holstein, Franz Untersteller and Robert Habeck, agreed.
The dispute ended when Hessen and Bavaria also agreed to accept Castoren.
In April of this year the time had come: the transport to the interim storage facilities at the reactors in Brokdorf in Schleswig-Holstein, Biblis in Hesse, Philipsburg in Baden-Württemberg and Isar in Bavaria was due.
But then the corona crisis intervened in April, and the return campaign was canceled.
Now a new attempt is to be made.
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