Nuclear power, a prominent and controversial technology. One leading argument of the nuclear power debate for this technology is the low carbon footprint and low amounts of waste it produces – in comparison to fossil fuels.

Unfortunately, the low pollution that is being celebrated is by itself quite difficult to handle, given the fact that high-level radioactive waste consists of an array of elements that have varying half-lives. Throughout the time it takes one-half of the atomic nuclei of a radioactive sample to decay, or its half-life, the radioactive waste remains highly toxic to humans, animals and consumable vegetation, such as mushrooms. For example, the isotope Plutonium 239 has a half-life of about 24,000 years meaning that after 24,000 years of nuclear decay, half of the extremely toxic Plutonium 239 will have decayed to Uranium, then to Thorium, Protactinium, Actinium, Thorium (again, but different isotope this time), Radium, Radon, Polonium, Lead (still unstable), Bismuth and Thallium. Lastly, it decays to Lead 207 – this time stable. The other half of the decaying Plutonium is still around though, waiting to decay in a second half life in yet another few thousands of years, and so on.

Long story short, nuclear power plants might emit less carbon dioxide than the combined amount of carbon emissions released by car, jet and cargo ship engines on a daily basis. Yet the consequences of handling high-level radioactive waste are very problematic. In fact, radioactive waste management is so problematic that the German parliament voted to renew the nuclear storage selection law (called Standortauswahlgesetz) – which regulates the criteria for nuclear waste storages – to add several tighter guidelines. Amongst them was the demand that the storage facility has to be able to store decaying nuclear waste for “one million years”.

No one wants high-level nuclear waste stored close to their home, certainly not for the next million years – or the next 39.999 generations from your child on.

For people of the northern province of the German federal state of Lower-Saxony called Wendland, this unsettling thought of living around nuclear waste is a reality for decades already. The German government decided to store vast amounts of nuclear waste in the nuclear waste storage facility Gorleben. The nuclear waste storage facility Gorleben is frequently present in the news because of leaking barrels and other malfunctions.

People are expressing their discontent with the reality of living close to hazardous radioactive pollution by taking to the streets whenever a convoy of trucks is transporting more nuclear waste to the storage facility. The relocation of the nuclear waste from La Hague, France to the storage facility near Gorleben is overseen by a large police deployment and the nuclear waste has always reached its destination.

Nonetheless, the time it takes for the waste to reach its destination may vary due to the creative anti-nuclear protest movement and their pivot to both block the routes and achieve an absolute nuclear power phase-out. As of 2021 the interim-storage is being closed down since no permanent solution for storing nuclear waste in Gorleben is feasible.