Radioactive waste storage in Germany

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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'.

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.

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.

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.