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Germany's search for a nuclear waste site (www.dw.com)
submitted 1 week ago by You@feddit.org to c/europe@feddit.org
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[-] KatherinaReichelt@feddit.org 3 points 6 days ago

The thing is: We really do know where a good place to store the waste is. It's in the Bavarian Forest near the Czech border. Where the Czech also want to store their waste. Solid granite mountains. Sparsely populated area. We could simply start drilling some test caves and be done with it in a few years. This is, however, not possible because of our regional bavarian party. So we have to do this dance and pretend to search in the whole country for the best spot, which will of course be this perfect spot in Bavaria.

[-] lemmysmash@beehaw.org -4 points 6 days ago

To give a rough idea of how pathetic this nuclear idiosyncrasy is, here's are the numbers.

If article is correct, we're not talking about 300000 m³ of radioactive waste planned to be produced by 2050 by all industries (which are somehow already licensed to be stored).

We're talking about 27000 m³ (17000 tonnes in weight and 11 olympic swimming pools in comparison) of just heavy metal waste from nuclear fuel produced during 62 years (sixty fucking two fucking years!) of nuclear exploitation in Germany [source].

For comparison, every (fucking!) year Germany landfills (just landfills! it's 2% of generation!) at least 60000 tonnes of municipal waste, and... wait for it... 59140000 tonnes of waste in total (industrial, consrruction, municipal etc) [source, year 2024].

And yes, also those 300000 m³ (not per year, in total until 2050) less radioactive (but still radioactive) waste that has already been budgeted, from the first source.

It's mindboggling how humanity managed to find a source of such abundant, cheap, scalable and relatively clean energy... and then certain political entities demonized it and fucked it all up.

[-] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 12 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

It's because this particular waste is both extremely poisonous and extremely long-lasting.

[-] MatSeFi@lemmy.liebeleu.de 2 points 6 days ago

Not here to defend anything but natural thallium isotopes are just toxic without any half-life.

[-] Sloopyloop@feddit.org 2 points 6 days ago

And in what concentration do they exist in nature?

[-] MatSeFi@lemmy.liebeleu.de 1 points 4 days ago

Im talking about that a lot of never rotting stuff is buried the hole time without attention from a wider public. Thallium was just an example of stuff of similar toxicity as highly radioactive waste just without the radioactivity. But one could also name other heavy metals

[-] KatherinaReichelt@feddit.org 5 points 6 days ago

It’s mindboggling how humanity managed to find a source of such abundant, cheap, scalable and relatively clean energy… and then certain political entities demonized it and fucked it all up.

In my lifetime I've seen 2 reactors blow up and at least one being fought over during a war. That does not sound safe at all

[-] kossa@feddit.org 4 points 6 days ago

It's mindboggling how humanity managed to find a source of such abundant, cheap, scalable and relatively clean energy... and then certain political entities demonized it and fucked it all up.

Sounds like you talk about solar and wind energy in this paragraph, 'cause nuclear ain't cheap. Never was competitive, having nuclear energy was always about "we could build the bomb if we wanted to", that's why society paid for it.

this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2026
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