“Operation warning tape”

Utilities and the German government continue to argue about the storage of nuclear waste, five months after a government-appointed commission proposed that the country’s four nuclear power station operators should pay more than 20 billion euros into a state-administered fund to finance the endeavour, writes Michael Bauchmüller in Süddeutsche Zeitung. It has yet to be defined, for instance, at what exact point and in what condition the waste is turned over to the state. The commission had proposed that the utilities would have to fully prepare the nuclear waste for final storage before the government fund takes over, according to Bauchmüller. Government sources still believe that a solution can be found within the coming month, he writes.

Read the article in German here.

For background, read the CLEW dossier The challenges of Germany’s nuclear phase-out and the CLEW factsheet Securing utility payments for the nuclear clean-up.