The interim storage scientists in germany is minced alarmed region houses more than three hundred concepts of highly Radioactive Nuclear waste. The search is on for a permanent storage site that will be safe for a million years. Problem is there is no such place. If we believe in a completely safe final storage side we deceiving ourselves. Weve taken on too much which weve taken on too much with this selfinflicted problem and. Its the start of the shift in the our House Nuclear waste repository for power all to man its a work place like any other. God my work is fun to get on well with my colleagues they do a great job i do a great job i feel safe here with the seans are. All the man is a crane driver in hole eight he operates the overhead crane that can carry a load of one hundred forty tons. Our radioactive legacy is stored in the eastern half of the whole three hundred and twenty nine casks filled with spent nuclear fuel. Among other things they contain plutonium and other trans uranium elements all radioactive some for millions of years seventy five percent of the german population believe this radioactive waste is already stored underground but it will be a long time before that happens. Site manager Marcus Werner and his colleagues here are the custodians of an elaborate provisional solution. Total for up or not thats a problem in the central warehouses almost two hundred meters long and twenty meters high. Physicist jacqueline bartoli checks the measurements every day. Theyre lower than the typical dose rates on an average day in the center of munich eighty eight nanos events per hour. The senator the thing thats very low the casks are in this storage area over there on the other side is industrial waste you can feel safe here. That causes a few of. These casks are considered the most stable waste receptacles in Human History unless we dont know whether theyre seals will hold for more than forty years but theyre associated with other dangers that dont originate in the warehouse. Our house is considered a potential terrorist target important aspects of the safeguarding and protection concepts are kept confidential the only thing we do know is that the facility has to be constantly updated and fixed gutters for jet fuel are going to be built here soon lets get on going up whats the potential scenario is the crash of a large passenger plane we have to make sure that we dont have a long lasting kerosene fire in the depo so will channel the kerosene out of the depo to shorten the time of a fire inside of a course and. Another measure has been conceived to make the interim depo safer. An additional protective wall is to be erected around the building the maoists the war is aimed at dealing with new threat scenarios and insights from federal and safety authorities regarding the impact of third parties on the storage site in fossil that means things like terrorist proofing and other scenarios were going to just sonali in. The operating permit for the interim Storage Facility runs out in twenty thirty six its already clear that it will have to be extended thats because nobody knows where to store the waste long term. Radioactive waste is stored in different interim depos depending on the level of radioactivity and the. Produced in addition to Central Science such as our house call aban and movement there are further interim storage sites used by industry and Research Facilities and on the grounds of Nuclear Power plants. The term interim storage may sound harmless but its actually incredibly dangerous says valve gang leave out a security and risk expert at the university of Natural Resources in vienna hes surprised by how reluctant germany is to choose a final storage site all the many concrete risks of interim storage are neglected. The sensation of other thoughts this interim storage situation really needs to be just that interim its not a solution everyone knows that something brewing above ground that really shouldnt be there was like fortunately nothing has happened yet but it could and if it does the waste would be unprotected and out there in the atmosphere we have to get it below ground quickly the stuff in this flood that mr bush never went to the end a clean this is for this club the Nuclear Waste isnt safe today it probably never has been but for a long time that issue didnt receive much attention the first Nuclear Power station was connected to the grid in russia in the mid one nine hundred fifty s. Today scientists are horrified by how casually the spent radioactive fuel was handled in the past. Germany has had Nuclear Power since one nine hundred sixty one. The first minister for Nuclear Issues france years of strauss laid the groundwork for the optimism typical of his day. Yet only of Nuclear Energy can lead humanity into a new better age will be another golden one if we can master the demon that is Nuclear Power. The demon mainly referred to the spent nuclear. Where should it go should it be discarded in the antarctic or shot into space with rockets both suggestions came to nothing too expensive and also too dangerous. The third approach has been implemented by several countries dumping Nuclear Waste in the city in one thousand nine hundred two greenpeace activists tried to stop the crew of a russian tanker from doing just that but to no avail to this day countless containers with radioactive waste my on the bottom of the ocean. Does this mean thats typical of how we dealt with technology in the Twentieth Century we saw the positive sides progress Growth Energy all buzzwords that drive things forward but we ignore the downside for the time on to ignore the well there were only a few voices early on saying you know this is a big problem that we need to solve now was this poppy a must for food dish was most those voices didnt prevail because its. A now the waste is then. Technology philosophy. Is one of the people charged with coming up with a concrete and objective answer to the question should it go definitely underground thats the consensus among scientists around the world locked up in salt clay or granite the goal is to found a final story side by twenty thirty one. Storage should then begin in twenty fifty the decisive criterion is that the Nuclear Waste be stored safely for a million years. I mean your job is to a million years is an inconceivable time span for people technological managerial measures cant really county safety for such a long period they cant. But geology can help because it deals with such timeframes and it could be said that i talked to dick yogi kirov formations that remain stable for hundreds of thousands to millions of years beyond the one im stuck. By contrast we humans and die activities are mused snapshots the pyramids of giza have been standing for four and a half thousand years. The cave drawings of lascaux of survive for as much as seventeen thousand years. Homo sapien n. Z. Modern humans evolved in africa as recently as two hundred thousand years ago and now homo sapien as wants to build something that will last a million years. Or is that just the number invented by politicians to loveless Nuclear Power in its radioactive legacy is a politically explosive issue in germany. All being told her thank. God nor. My. Goal a billion in lower saxony in one thousand nine hundred eighty seven the government decided to build a final repository for highly Radioactive Nuclear waste here in a not so dime one point six billion euros was spent on exploration there were vehemently protests from the outset and not only about the permanent way step the demonstrators were against Nuclear Power per se. Most recent transport of radioactive waste to go away but it took place in nov twenty eighth eleven in the same year the federal government had decided to phase out Nuclear Power. In twenty thirteen the year in which the repository Site Selection act was adopted. Exploration was halted the old bogeyman are a thing of the past says Green Party Politician kearney his federal agency is responsible for finding a final reponse to tree leaders because the debate about final storage the possibilities and limitations and also the impossibilities was always shaper whether you were for or against Nuclear Energy that central question has been solved by policymakers the decision to get out of Nuclear Power has been clearly taken the task at hand there is solving the problem that exists we cant just close our eyes and say were not interested its here that. The situation in sweden is different sweden is even holding a competition about who will be allowed to solve the Nuclear Waste problem two towns fought to become final repositories the municipality of. Two hours north of stockholm is now supposed to receive all of swedens Nuclear Waste. This is where the final repository will be built below a forest near the baltic coast the depth of five hundred metres. Whats incredible from a german perspective is that the population of osama is anxious to see construction begin. Lashing thing if the safe place that we should take the responsibility to store it here i guess yeah i think its good they create slots or. I think its good for their Community House prices will go up. Im really positive that were to be do we we have we have these things to take care of and we have to do it somewhere. Post hammer and to go a label of the far north the mayor doesnt want to go into that he has a simple explanation for the residents attitude. We are a new Care Community we have the Nuclear Power plant plant site up there which means that the understanding and the perception and for that matter the good will of the Nuclear Industry is of course much bigger here that compared to many other places i think you are a lot of people feel quite proud of the fact that youre participating in the pioneering process. To test homes are currently being drilled at the site of the future depo if environmental officials in the Parliament Give the green light and construction will begin in twenty twenty two. Projects will create up to seven hundred jobs in addition the men negotiated a bonus of one hundred fifty Million Euros for the town. You may say that we were clever enough to to to decide we we wanted a strong the industry and of course at the end of the road there was a threat or whatever in order to be successful with this very difficult program they want they had to make sure that. But to have a good cooperation with the municipalities. The industry the man means the swedish final repository operator s k b its employee in the north home whos been responsible for Public Relations in osama for many years. Was now i am stuck in. The exact location of the repository is kept secret sweden has also become cautious a trip to the storage site for low and intermediate level radioactive waste is been around for many years the final repository for highly radioactive waste will probably look similar one day. Being an old home and her colleagues have set up an exhibition down here its to explain the swedish concept of visitors and alleviate fears of the final repose of trade. Transparency and openness thats the operators strategy. Have gnowledge we have acceptance and also we have to fight the system and that is fair game for us but also it would take a long time to create all this if we are talking about the facility which will be open for iran sixty years we will push it over to race shuts the door so we push for a solution for that. Not everyone sees it that way. There are skeptics in sweden to. Them weve got one of them is johann swan the head of an environmental organization. He believes his fellow swedes are too laid back about the final riposte trick question. What we are putting off the future generations the risks by by by doing at. Project that we will not work it is frustrating that that that so much effort has to be done to finance a project in this sense but even the environmentalists are fundamentally opposed to storing Nuclear Waste underground there are more guards now since their most recent visit the entrance to the future final storage site resembles a prison gate. I think you are Major Players that are in a castle yes saying you want me to come by the vehicle again. I dont know if you were allowed to feel the towers. The construction site is located on an island its almost impossible to see what happens there good protection from terrorists but also from critics in hama harbor these two are planning the next step of their educational campaign. I got a horrible snuffle the idea in sweden is to put it in copper canisters and then down into the bedrock. And the problem appears to be that the copper will be destroyed much faster than intended so instead of being safe for one hundred thousand years it may break down only after a couple of hundred years as a man but hang on just one there will be a referendum in hama in february twenty eighth and residents could still change their minds about the final repository project pantheon slan knows the likelihood of that is low people in sweden have a high trust of of government of of politicians but especially of the government agencies. And s k b is perceived as being something part of the government and therefore that its easier for them to have trust. Critical oversight of the final repository project. Very important but in sweden two the greatest dangers are above ground Nuclear Waste storage is all about risk tradeoffs. Ask us harm this town also applied to be the site of the final repository thats right applied but the granite here turned out to be less stable than that of its rival applicant thats one of the hamas won the bid nevertheless further research on final repose a tree safety is being conducted on the outskirts of town four hundred and forty nine meters below ground in the spare hard rock laboratory. S k b company runs a test lab here one of the things that studies is the clay that would be used to envelop the Nuclear Waste casks. If i had a responsible for Public Relations and geologist olga musk and scalia admit that theyre still experimenting. Sometimes when you do it for a year you see that theory and practice arent the same thing from the mistakes you learned to do do with their i place are making mistakes is important. And care not finding them. Trial and error thats the principle Nuclear Waste disposal escapee has been using for the past forty years to find the best storage method. This film was intended to explain the concept to visitors if you will elements are to be enclosed in copper containers. Deep down in the granite special machines then lower the containers into the bore holes then the holes are filled with special bentonite clay nature the entire system of tunnels is gradually filled to when the storage site is full after eighty to one hundred years it will be closed forever it wont be mocked its supposed to be forgotten the swedes say that theyve done enough research to get moving after all new insights will always come along. Just waiting for for a better technique wont take us anywhere because thats thats thats what how much do you know whats a bad feet maybe something happens tomorrow movie next year we waited feet on to do that lets think here. But thats not the solution that is just. Not doing anything. The swedish approach also has risks water is already entering the granite via cracks the. Bracer is performing a long term experiment to find out what that will mean for the Nuclear Waste containers but s k b only wants to reveal its results after all the permits have been approved that transparency. In germany things are progressing more slowly at least theres a plan for searching for the final reponse tree now. It officially starts with a blank map but experts already know that such a final repast tree can only be built insult clay or granite salt domes may exist in northern germany. Play can also be found in the north as well as in the region around poland and like constance. Granite is found in eastern bavaria and in saxony geological formations such as salt domes have grown over millions of years the layers of rock above are safety barriers that would prevent the release of the radioactive waste even if there were major changes to the surface. So much can happen in a million years there was a time when the alps grew by five millimeters a year so in theory a Mountain Range with a height of five thousand meters could grow up during that period all that could be a new ice age those are uncertainties we have to live with if we want to get our Nuclear Waste below ground. When a community here. Will never have one hundred percent safety at a given time because our knowledge will progress but in my view theres no alternative to this route my worry is the longer we wait the more we run the risk that the politicians will find it less and less attractive to take responsible. Quality other routes will seem increasingly attractive such as the one that for me is out of the question the cheap route namely disposing of this waste in a country other than germany. That has been out of the question so far according to the principle that the polluter should pay Nuclear Waste has to be disposed of its country of origin decades of research have gone into how Nuclear Waste can be stored in the safest possible manner in germany and the institute for Nuclear Waste disposal in colors were for example unfortunately german scientists were long seen as willing accessories to the Nuclear Industry. The feeling that exists in many places right now is distrust. People dont really know what to believe anymore and the scientists have a hard time regaining that trust with the kind of statements they make so i think itll be a while before we get back to a place of mutual trust. And. Trust thats something the scientists hope to get by doing well founded research and by being transparent about their results they want to find out what dangers are caused by water infiltrating into a final repository. Falcon mets works with highly radioactive plutonium. The dangerous material is stored in shielded boxes and is only moved with the help of robotic arms the chemist is testing how radioactive substances inside a car react when they come into contact with water rusting casks deep in the ground up to now thats been a horror scenario but the tests have delivered surprising results. Theres much to suggest that rust on the final repository container binds and even holds back the dangerous radio new clients. On the market long according to its own flex to size even though we think of it as a bad sign of containers corroding and water is approaching the wasteful it turns out that this corrosion process can provide protective factors and is not necessarily simply a disaster there are other interactions here that were looking at in this experiment you can expand the scientists in karlsruhe or simulate the ways in which radioactivity from a final depo could enter the environment. The first step is to determine what happens to radioactive substances that leak from their container and come into contact with water. Chemist marcus out meyer is an expert in this scenario. It will inevitably occur sooner or later in our final report a tree for the thermos and the movement will. Do the radionuclides dissolve in the water allowing them to be transported quickly during the experiment a greenish sediment appears in the test tube can we get that we can compare the colors if we look at the precipitant id say is definitely plutonium for you. That indicates that the water only takes up a small amount of the plutonium a significant amount remains in the final repository as a precipitate meaning it wont reach the surface. Most guys remains cautious regardless he too says well never have one hundred percent safety but how safe is safe enough to fire against its a difficult question to answer that always depends on the society in question for me is like this if we stay below the risk potential that nature gives us then thats a very good concept. So whats safe enough is certainly a good question but the actual question is shouldnt we at least move to a state the safer than the one we have now in the small. So the Nuclear Waste should go underground into granite rocks for example geochemist toss and schaefer and his team are examining this type of rock granite is very hard but craggy if it is to house a final repository the containers need an extra wall with the clay material bentonite for example like in sweden it swells when it comes into contact with water. In the seanad and were looking at how this bentonite swells to fill the open space maybe to the extent that it becomes completely sealed off. Cracks in the rock could be sealed up this way radioactively contaminated water would be sealed in in the simulation only a small portion of the radionuclides managed to escape from a funnel reporter trick thats good news for the client the federal government will like hearing these results but this is whats making some people suspicious. Oh does a positive in porch after we have to look at all these positive messages in detail do they really help us find a solution to the problem rather just small interesting effects that can be interpreted either way. As kuntar feel we have to be really concrete about what they mean so we dont run the risk of having all this night in distracting science that doesnt provide a relevant solution to the problem or does support them us better than most. Nice science whats also nice for politicians is that they dont have to decide anything as long as the scientists are still researching calculating and testing Klaus Fischer operative and his colleagues are working on long term safety analyses for finally reponse injuries. Research commissioned by the government designed to produce many encouraging results vehemently rejects that challenge. There are no were not trying to make anything look good or wed lose our legitimacy if we did that we can all make things look good but i dont think thats scientifically acceptable. We shot some fish and shellfish ok all of. The geologist believes that the science is advanced enough that we can Start Building final storage sites. You. The Computer Program v. H. S. Will soon allow scientists to conduct safety tests in a virtual final repository class for apple knows that the longer we search for the perfect side the more critical the temporary storage aboveground will become. Again the end of the lifetime of an interim storage site i have to move the spent fuel elements i can leave it in the Cascades Research has been done into the changes that this fuel will undergo over those periods of time lets just say the situation in the casks doesnt improve with age that means the problem becomes more and more urgent the longer it persists from kind of a. Cast on Nuclear Waste cask is safe for forty years experts say when scientists like apple urges to hurry environmental organizations and citizens initiatives listen with mistrust but the situation today is different from fifty years ago the advantages and disadvantages of different kinds of host rock of being studied around the world again experts agree that a final repose a tree and a good geological conditions provides a high degree of safety due to its depth and that we should take advantage of that as long as we still can begin to modify alls we always assume that our society will continue to develop the way it has done for the past hundred hundred fifty years but what of a big Natural Disaster strikes at that point the final storage issue wont be the priority anymore itll be in last place i. Didnt see. Many experts believe the time is ripe and yet decades will pass in germany before a final repository can start operating. Why thats the case becomes very obvious here. Mark im drenched thoughts and his colleague to be as how many are responsible for site safety. Oyston cage takes them to the first working level of a salt mine thats more than one hundred years old. The mine is dilapidated the shafts were widened to such an extent that become they. And unstable. At a depth of four hundred ninety meters the geophysicists measure how the rock is moving centimeter by centimeter. Waves are visible to the naked eye that the ground is bulging dangerously thats fine yes yes what you can see here under this line is pressure from the rock on the southern flank the roofs of these mining chambers are around five to six meters thick and this pressure from the rock causes the hollow spaces to be compressed at the same time these mining levels bulge in the end they will crack due to the defamation of its not a pretty picture shot its but. Nevertheless Nuclear Waste has been stored here since the late one nine hundred sixty s. A total of one hundred twenty six thousand containers with low level and intermediate level radioactive waste. This interview that is going up and. These are the images that have become etched in peoples minds the digger letting the bowels drop its symbolic of how not to do final storage and it was said for a long time that everything was safe the population was left in that belief and the authorities involved acted that way as well then suddenly when the issue of closing this mine came up we were told how dangerous it was and that there was only a short time left that doesnt exactly nurture trust if it did exactly the opposite and were still dealing with that today toward. The miners main job consists of stabilizing the salt domes as best they can so that one day in the distant future the radioactive waste can be recovered water is getting in through cracks in the rock the liquid is being collected adept. Of six hundred fifty eight meters and then pumped away. Eleven and a half cubic meters every day. To divest thats what this side of the water inflow is one of the big challenges we face here we cant rule out an emergency before the final caskets recovered meaning so much water will get into the site that we wont be able to control the system and. The water isnt contaminated with radioactivity here the water further down on the price of the Safety Measures one hundred Million Euros per year. Is in cost in place and of course this money comes one hundred percent from taxpayers that means were all paying for the sins of the past. In the knowledge that individual Companies Made a fair bit of money creating this waste that it will get food into. The chambers with the radioactive waste are deep in the ground covered over by concrete experts fear conditions down there may be catastrophic thats why the German Parliament decided in twenty thirty to retrieve the waste but without knowing whether that retrieval was technically feasible the governments advisory body on radiation safety is now recommending that the assa mine be closed off forever keeping it open or closing it forever that question will also arise for a future final repository. Some specialists insist that a final storage site should remain accessible so that emergency measures can be taken if needed. The majority of experts disagree however they say the danger. That the wrong people can get access is too great after all the final repository would contain substances that could be used for weapons and guarding the waste all the time is impossible they say. While guards and concrete cant replace geological barriers in the long term in my view below ground we need the security of these geological barriers because that gives us a whole new option namely that we can finally forget about the Waste Society will forget about this waste. Forget about the waste that could be risky people in the distant future could accidentally open this pandoras box and be exposed to the radiation how can we best warn them. Christian touch a linguist from berlin is Technical University is looking into that he puts himself in the shoes of a person who in many thousands of years time sees a sign reading warning Nuclear Waste in a lush remsen fired by a savvy that in the worst Case Scenario they neither know that its a message nor that its meant for them or anyone at all and they dont understand what it means if we look at old german i can read it because im a german linguistics expert and only because ive been trained to read it for an ordinary german can understand it and thats just one thousand five hundred years ago but what if three thousand years have gone by us and potatoes and other five gallons and. Thats why in the one nine hundred eighty s. A french italian team researched alternative ways of conveying information. They suggested breeding genetically modified cats whose fare lights up when its exposed to radioactivity. Special nuclear flowers could also warn people in a more sustainable manner than writing with symbols. Information has never been deliberately passed on and understood across such a long time period. But never before did humans have such a great responsibility to subsequent generations the challenge of creating final repositories is huge its probably the most complex Infrastructure Project in history and its a tough test for democracy what is really the right moment to begin it. And so to have knowledge keeps developing in science that means theyll always be progress in what we know final storage in a deep geological repository is one option of keeping the radionuclides away from the biosphere for a very long time as far as we know the other option would be to do nothing. Archaeologist cornelius hold off from Lunar University in sweden agrees that doing nothing is a bad idea even though we may have to admit to ourselves that the task at hand is actually too much for us. To go to. The biggest challenge is to conceive of the time periods were talking about as an archaeologist i have some insight into an ancient Human History if we think about how old homo sapien is is then were talking in two hundred thousand years roughly form of a if we think a million years into the future we cant even assume that homo sapien ends as a species will still be dominant on earth as an archaeologist Cornelius Holtorf is used to approaching history by looking back that gives you an unusual view Nuclear Waste is the cultural legacy of our bizarre era. Could us also consider its going to be reasons other than safety why we should preserve it or if were going to preserve it isnt there a whole different story to tell than just the one about the dangers of radioactive waste in the study of. Nuclear waste is a remnant of our age one that we want to and have to preserve for the future but it has that in common with cultural monuments although its the other way round here were not preserving it because we think its good we want to preserve it to protect ourselves from it as the for the ships. The role of cultural monuments is to tell us about a different time if we see it that way then you clear ways is one of the most important sources for learning about the second half of the Twentieth Century or so that. Naivete and hubris could those be the characteristics future generations will ascribe to the science and society of the late Twentieth Century will the twenty First Century go down in history as the era in which a solution to the Nuclear Waste problem is found its uncertain but were going to have to try whether were for or against Nuclear Power is irrelevant now. He moves on hes a solution to this problem is something we wont get around. Regardless of all the questions and doubts we cant leave it up to our children and grandchildren that wouldnt just be cowardly it would be very risky as we often image and thats why we need politicians and scientists who will take on this problem head on and take responsibility. The only way is to restore trust and develop awareness of a shared task and then to build a final resting place for Nuclear Waste as quickly as possible. This is an. Its an incredible experiment hopefully itll succeed by. Another. One. It is. Justified when its at the cost of human. Medications and groundbreaking technologies are taking over the Healthcare System and generating billions. What should the health care of actually cost. The business of medicine. Made in germany thirty minutes. Every journey begins with the first step and every language the first word emerged in the. Eco is in germany to learn german why not learn simple online on your mobile and free form even in course the german meetings. So instead of using pesticides which kills all the animals all the instruction in the field one can use pheromones to control them sex you know for a natural way pheromones or chemical holes that end sex used to communicate with each other the males fly around until they smell less and they find a female and they mate and then the female lays eggs on the fruit and causes all the problems so what the farmer can do it is to use pheromones to spread all over the field you can produce hundreds of trails thousands of the field so the male can find people theres insect pests globally they all operate by using pheromones and so if we can develop it cheap enough and broadly enough at least it will be used by the whole. North and south korea have agreed to march under the same banner at next months Winter Olympics in a step that could decrease tensions between the rival neighbors theyll also send a joint womens hockey team if the International OlympicCommittee Approves the announcement came during a thirty day of high level talks within a week. At least ten people have been killed and Dozens Injured by suicide bombers in the north east in niger