Germany begins controversial nuclear waste transport

Germany has begun a controversial series of nuclear waste transports in its most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, a spokesman for the state's Interior Ministry told dpa.

The first convoy, carrying a Castor container, left an ex research reactor site in the western city of Jülich late on Tuesday and reached an interim storage facility in Ahaus early on Wednesday, around four hours after departure, according to a dpa reporter.

The shipment, escorted by a heavy police presence, is the first of 152 planned transports involving radioactive waste. Around 2,400 police officers were deployed for the operation.

Authorities declined to disclose the exact route of the roughly 170-kilometre journey in advance.

The transport remained fully on schedule and was even slightly faster than originally planned, a police spokesman said.

According to an Interior Ministry spokesman, the convoy consisted of around 100 vehicles in total and a helicopter was also deployed during the operation.

In total, about 300,000 fuel element spheres from the decommissioned Jülich reactor are to be relocated over an extended period, making it one of the largest nuclear waste transport operations by road in Germany in decades.

The transfers follow a series of court rulings, including a March decision by a higher administrative court allowing the shipments to proceed. Environmental group BUND had sought to block the transports, citing security concerns during transit.

Germany's federal office for the safety of nuclear waste management approved the plan in August. Four specialized vehicles are available, each capable of carrying one container at a time.

The waste has remained in temporary storage in Jülich since the site's operating licence expired in 2013. State authorities ordered its removal in 2014 after an earthquake safety concerns.

The plan has faced opposition from local residents and activists in Ahaus, with several protests held along the route. Demonstrations in Jülich, Ahaus and Duisburg drew dozens to a few hundred participants, according to dpa reporters, but did not delay the transport.

The country has no permanent repository where radioactive waste can be safely stored for hundreds of thousands of years. Instead, there are 16 interim storage facilities, including the one in Ahaus.