Atomic Waste Ruling

The Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig ruled Tuesday that a plan to store atomic waste in an abandoned iron ore mine could go ahead. Work will begin as soon as possible, although it will likely take a number of years before atomic waste is transferred to the site.

Heinrich Sander, Lower Saxony's environment minister and a member of the free-market liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) welcomed Tuesday's ruling, which comes after decades of legal challenges.

"There's finally legal certainty and clarity," he said.

Germany's federal government signalled it plans to go ahead with the storage project.

"There's no other alternative than to implement the decision," said Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD).

Phasing out nuclear power

The underground site will hold up to 303,000 cubic meters of atomic waste. Communities and farmers near the site fought for years to stop the project, questioning the long-term safety of the storage facility and fearful of a possible terrorist attack. The court dismissed those claims.

At present, Germany plans to phase out its use of nuclear power. The previous coalition of Socialist Democrats (SPD) and the Green party under former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder agreed to shut down all power plants by 2020.

But current Chancellor Angela Merkel of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has questioned the phase-out plans. She recently challenged opponents of nuclear energy in Germany to come up with realistic solutions to the country's energy needs while paying heed to environmental issues.

"I'm saying that those who want both the nuclear phase-out and climate protection are now, naturally, called upon to provide answers," Merkel said in an interview with German radio in January.

Current storage problems

Yet regardless of the future of nuclear energy, Germany still has to find solutions for storing the high-level radioactive waste which already exists.

In 2005, an atomic waste storage facility near the city of Hanau was closed. Since then, most toxic waste continues to be sent to a "temporary" storage facility in the eastern German town of Gorleben.

It will take five to six years after the decision for atomic waste to be transferred to the storage area, according to an article in the daily Braunschweiger Zeitung on Wednesday. The ruling did not change the debate over using Gorleben as a storage place for highly radioactive atomic waste. The Gorleben site has not been proven to be safe in the long term, according to the newspaper.

The German Atomic Council welcomed the ruling and asked the government to comply with its responsibility to prepare the storage place.