[ndr42]

"Dozens of above ground areas need to be secured for thousand of years." - why?

Well, you were replying to a reply of me to panick21 where he said:

  Nuclear 'waste' doesn't need a repository, its perfectly fine to just store it above ground for as long as needed.

So I suggested that there could be a problem with terrorism when there are a lot of decentral storage sites above ground. To which you said it would be irrelevant.

If there are easy and cheap longtime-solutions to the radioactive waste problem - fine with me. In Germany we certainly don't have them at the moment.

I think it will be easier and cheaper to avoid this kind of waste altogether and use batteries, wind and solar.

[Moldoteck]

You can store it on site for as long as the site is operational which means(if you allow extensions/relicensing) about 80-100y. Afterwards you need a repository similar to Herfa Neurode or Onkalo.

The cheapest way in Germany would be either to allow storing in Herfa Neurode or to send waste to la Hague for recycling, sell the recycled part and isolate only the leftovers.

Renewables don't isolate you from this problem. Germany still needs a repository for medical and research waste. Germany also needs repositories for toxic chemicals (arsenic, cadmium, lead- byproducts of various industries including renewables)

Even more, Germany can't get by with solar+wind+bess alone. Fraunhofer ISE recommends massive gas expansion to 80+GW to firm renewables. I'd rather see any fossils infrastructure erased from existence. France doesn't need a parallel fossils firming grid. Nor Sweden.

[ndr42]

Alone the costs for transport are exorbitant.

Here [1] is an example for planned transports of 152 CASTOR casks containing around 300,000 fuel element pebbles from Jülich to Ahaus: The lowest estimate (excluding security) is 150 Million Euros.

So electric energy in the past was cheap by using NPPs. The energy companies made massive profits. Now, decades later we have to pay for it and will have to continue to do so for centuries. (As always: privatize profits, socialize the costs)

I would like to take these 150 Million and buy some batteries...

[1] Sorry, german language: https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2026-03/radioaktiver...

[Moldoteck]

Not that exorbitant. Npp operators are paying for dismantling themselves (except soviet/experimental units). Waste storage (Interim/final) was paid too through KENFO which is massive and agreed by all parties, incl greens. I guess this transport will be financed from that fund too.

Germany could recycle all that waste at la Hague, build a repository Like Onkalo and still have leftover money. If for some reason KENFO isn't enough, chiefs of BMUV and BASE should be investigated For treason and wasting public money. Germany could even deal with this cheaper by allowing storing the waste at facilities like herfa neurode. This would also solve storing waste from medical and research sectors