Germany’s hidden leaking nuclear waste dump

Germany has a dirty little secret. In the middle of the country, deep underground, a radioactive waste dump has been leaking for decades. And nobody really knows what do to with it.
#planeta #nuclearwaste #asse
We're destroying our environment at an alarming rate. But it doesn't need to be this way. Our new channel Planet A explores the shift towards an eco-friendly world - and challenges our ideas about what dealing with climate change means. We look at the big and the small: What we can do and how the system needs to change. Every Friday we'll take a truly global look at how to get us out of this mess.
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Credits:
Reporter: Kiyo Dörrer
Video Editor: David Jacobi Camera, Henning Goll
Supervising Editors: Michael Trobridge, Malte Rohwer-Kahlmann, Joanna Gottschalk
Fact-Check: Kirsten Funck
Thumbnail: Em Chabridon
Read more:
Information on Asse II by the operator BGE: www.bge.de/en/asse/
The water in the Asse II (German): www.bge.de/de/asse/themenschw...
Lower Saxony parliamentary investigative committee report from 2012 on political misconduct regarding Asse II (German): dserver.bundestag.de/btd/18/C...
Examples of waste documentation compiled by Greenpeace (German): www.greenpeace.de/sites/defau...
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:33 The former salt mine at Asse
2:38 Going underground
5:28 The problem with the water
7:16 Instability of the mine
8:04 How could this happen?
10:40 The big removal
13:40 Local protest
15:04 Conclusion

[@DWPlanetA]

Have you heard of Asse before? Do you know you of any similar cases from other parts of the world?

[@user-kd2uo9cz8f]

i haven't heard. i live near dry nuclear storage facility run by Mining Chemical Combine (MCC) in zheleznogorsk, russia

[@TiborRoussou]

Onkalo was supposed to be the worlds first nuclear repository. Onkalo is meant to contain nuclear waste for 100,000 years.

[@giovannigarbaccio4954]

THIS PROGRAM CREATES FEAR AND HARMS THE IMAGE OF NUCLEAR ENERGY, THE FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY IS GRATEFUL DW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@oneshothunter9877]

Project iceworm/Camp Century in Greenland. US Army supposedly left 2000 tonnes of radioactive waste water from the reactor IN the inland ice of Greenland. This waste will pour out into ocean eventually. No plans to even try to clean it up. Probably impossible. Thank you for an interesting documentary.

[@utubestalkerdotcom]

herding donkeys?

[@mrkokolore6187]

4:26 Props to the DW Planet A team for showing and mentioning the radiation level or rather the lack thereof as well as the natural nuclear radiation coming from the environment naturally.

[@maxheim3802]

Big problem is that these substances are heavy metals which are highly toxic

[@mrkokolore6187]

@@maxheim3802 Yeah. Like those for which Germany has the largest final storage facility in the world. I'm talking about Herfa-Neurode. But when it is radioactive for some reason finding a final storage facility seems to be impossible.

[@Masterrunescapeer]

Yes? The issue has never been to temporarily store it, it's always been about long-term and the cost associated with it. This shows how issues crop up over time, and you have no guarantee that the country will be able to afford to maintain a nuclear dumping ground in a hundred years. Just look at Germany pre-WW1 economy vs post, same for WW2. Imagine that at the end of one they needed to still figure out how to maintain a nuclear storage facility.

[@ZrJiri]

​@@maxheim3802 The only heavy metal in any meaningful quantities in low/intermediate level waste would be lead used for shielding, and that's no more toxic than all the lead we still have in old drinking water pipes.

[@Artoootube]

Have you seen the pools of contaminated water my dear??? Or you watched only 1 min. of the above material???

[@Paulkjoss]

It seems so un-German to not keep detailed records, let alone not stack things efficiently- whats going on? 😅

[@meerkathero6032]

The nuclear industry wanted something and politicians made it happen, no matter the cost.

[@gulliverthegullible6667]

you need to let go of your stereotypes, that is what is going on.

[@richardjones2811]

Germany is a user, not the boss of it.

[@spamstabber]

Yeah you should probably look up the state of German industry right now, your stereotype is a bit out of date. 😅

[@morisuzuka8408]

Its West Germany.

[@RB-xq7qh]

They literally just dumped it lol. Didnt stack or organize or nothing. Germany is wild

[@elonmuskes4874]

it is qite a commen method for desoposing of low level neuclier waste. this is also the method used in findald for long term disposal. the method ensure that as few people as posible have to come into contact with the material. when the "rooms" are alsost full they can simply fill the rest with concrete and leave it. As explaind in the video salt is an exilent insulator for the radioative materials.

[@holgernarrog]

It was a test. There were chambers were the barrels were stucked and others were just dumped. Anything against this excellent test site? or the green communist propaganda?

[@holgernarrog]

A propaganda that made an excellent test site which was the example for the WIPP in the USA to green communist propaganda tool?

[@sansmoi4168]

The Brits just duped it in the sea

[@mikemhz]

@@sansmoi4168 Not just the Brits. Belgium and France too. The Brits just dumped 3x more than anyone else. While this practice has been prohibited since 1982, it has not resulted in significant contamination

[@chincemagnet]

Nuclear waste in steel barrels, plus salt water. That was a big brained idea to use that site.

[@davidallen6434]

It Doesn't Work The Way They Want If They Even Care. Water Only Hides Nuclear Waste Just Like Salt Only Hides The Signals. In Truth They Really Messed Up.

[@Waldemarvonanhalt]

Low- and intermediate-level waste is effectively just trash.

[@krazy.88]

and usualy they pour concrete into barels. this documentary is just another sht show.

[@RochaPartneristDeadFireHD]

you are not gonna find high level waste in steel barrels

[@chincemagnet]

@@RochaPartneristDeadFireHD I forget what they said, filters and some other stuff. Not spent fuel.

[@vincentgrinn2665]

its a real shame that nuclear waste has so much thought put into its disposal, and then gets so much flack for it but coal power plants get to dump all of their waste into the air and regular garbage dumps like its nothing

[@ch.k.3377]

Exhaust gases from coal-fired power plants can be filtered, but unfortunately radioactivity cannot

[@ok-tr1nw]

​​​@@ch.k.3377radioactivity can be washed out since water is basically just a wall of protons and neutrons

[@vincentgrinn2665]

@@ch.k.3377 yeah, and most dont even bother filtering it and those that do, all the filtered out debris have to go somewhere, and that somewhere is to regular old dumps with the bottom ash, which can leak into water sources

[@robertking3090]

you should see some of those Chinese solar manufacturing plants look similar to that lol

[@MutheiM_Marz]

Coal exhaust contains radioactive particles, coal burned in Europe is smeared the Earth atmosphere all the way to Asia meanwhile Germany nuclear waste never leaves its country…Some dudes said he stationed in US carrier and a dosimeter never went off at the sea except when they docked at a coast of Italy where there are a coal power plant operating…

[@gabberking]

As always Citizens and Tax payers will pay for the mess not the actual responsible organization.

[@sarahmayer8539]

"but nuclear is soooo cheap!" /s

[@insynthesiswithinfiniteis2318]

That's the nuclear industry motto "Privatize the profits, publicize the risk"

[@cherriberri8373]

​@@sarahmayer8539 fossil fuel is not cheap either. You pay for it through your taxes in subsidies, you are just ignorant to it. You also, unlike nuclear, pay for fossil fuels in your health insurance and home insurances as well, as those are more expensive due to the strain fossil fuels puts on our health and the environment.

[@cherriberri8373]

​@@insynthesiswithinfiniteis2318 if fossil fuels have zero risk, sure. Otherwise you just described most industries motto

[@utubestalkerdotcom]

Germany can recycle the nuclear waste [zirconium and uranium] as clean energy and have power for the next 100 years or so.. The US is trying to do it. (Resource: Oklo Inc)

[@J.Green-Rx]

Do you want Godzilla? Cause this is how you get Godzilla.

[@zanastumasonis]

without providing radioactivity levels, this could be blown out of proportion, it has been decaying and will continue to do so, depending on the waste, could be not as bad

[@foxylovelace2679]

The show Dark makes a lot more sense now. The shady nuclear dealings really are a present issue in the minds of germans.

[@holgernarrog]

You mean the disinformation by the green communists?

[@2147B]

All nuclear reactors produce waste, What are other countries methods for "throwing away"

[@joeleonard9965]

Pretty similar. Just look at​ Runit Island@@2147B

[@calcog5716]

​@@2147Bto store waste in big concrete and lead containers on the powerplant site or recycle it

[@lepustimidus7016]

This story is essential in understanding why Germans are so opposed to nuclear power.

[@holgernarrog]

A propaganda that made an excellent test site which was the example for the WIPP in the USA to green communist propaganda tool?

[@yarost12]

Muh brown coal yeeeessss I love sniffing s m o g

[@mnd7381]

It's really a mess, but then again with this population, what're you gonna do

[@Alte.Kameraden]

To be honest, they handled it poorly, and it's their own fault. Not Nuclear Power itself. US doesn't have this problem, we took the disposal of nuclear waste more seriously.

[@farariri]

Germans are opposed to nuclear power because the Russians told them to do so. It's all about money baby.

[@TheRealSykx]

Yeah this issue has always been a later thing.. well later is eventually upon us

[@charlie15627]

Yeah, I knew about the problem but I didn't know the specifics of the situation. I'd just heard about an underground nuclear waste storage site, in Germany, that had numerous problems like water leaking in and poor storage practices. Thank you, for helping me to better understand the problem.

[@albertutrecht9627]

Dumped it in the channel too.

[@Psychobellic]

great so if there is an emergency while people are in the van, all oxygen is in the trunk lol

[@Chrispy4957]

😂 i thought the same thing.

[@TE822]

Our predecessors really did not give a fuck about the future.

[@doodskie999]

My problem is the future's problem mindset

[@csibesz07]

Same going on now with CO2 and plastics.

[@Waldemarvonanhalt]

You're worried about rubber gloves and cotton smocks?

[@abramsstonks6076]

nor do I

[@juh4rtluka230]

nobody does.

[@sanderspeek6981]

This gives “wir schaffen das” a whole new dimension🤷‍♂️🤣

[@ElonHusky]

German engineering 😂

[@theblackwithin3457]

i didn't know of this yet, but i am 100% not surprised.

[@holgernarrog]

about this green communist propaganda? -It was an old Potash mine that was bought for 1/2 M DM in the 60ies. -The waste stored there is low level radioacitve waste as contaminated shoes, clothing, lab equipment. -The biggest source of waste was the "Kernforschungszentrum Karlsruhe" (my father as nuclear regulator in BaWue had the responsibility). From a technical point of view Asse is overdone. In other countries this kind of waste is stored in concrete lined landfills (ex France, CSR). From a technical point of view it would make sense to flood it and close it.

[@elsarm178]

I have been working in this field in France, it is actually very possible to recycle nuclear waste, that was my job.

[@zaired]

this is mostly low and medium level waste, it's not that easy to recycle, but at the same time it's not very radioactive, so not very dangerous.... germans are just drama queens when it comes to nuclear

[@insynthesiswithinfiniteis2318]

That's not a solution to the problem, only a tiny portion of nuclear waste can be "recycled". It is prohibitively expensive, and the process actually creates more radioactive waste, in forms that are more difficult to manage.

[@insynthesiswithinfiniteis2318]

@@mrbad3036 Nuclear fuel repreprocessing has never been a viable option, due to the expense, proliferation risk, and environmental impact. Only a small portion of the waste can be reused, and the process itself is enormously expensive, risky, and creates a lot more radioactive waste, in forms that are more difficult to manage.

[@gregorymalchuk272]

​@@insynthesiswithinfiniteis2318 Fuel reprocessing certainly isn't more expensive than your ¢57 per kWh electricity prices.

[@gregorymalchuk272]

​@@insynthesiswithinfiniteis231857% of global carbon emissions come from countries that already have nuclear weapons. And power reactors produce reactor grade plutonium which is useless for nuclear weapons.

[@user-qp2ps1bk3b]

But how much is it radioactive? What is the real scope of the problem? Ground is radioactive too. Granite constantly leaks small amounts of Radon gas, but nobody proposes to remove all granite buildings

[@eskimo4130]

It's the potential for the mines to collapse and all the waste getting leaked eventually ending up into the water cycle near by. Wouldn't have been an issue if it wasn't dumped below ground

[@elonmuskes4874]

@@eskimo4130 were else should it have been dumped?

[@holgernarrog]

-It was an old Potash mine that was bought for 1/2 M DM in the 60ies. -The waste stored there is low level radioacitve waste as contaminated shoes, clothing, lab equipment. -The biggest source of waste was the "Kernforschungszentrum Karlsruhe" (my father as nuclear regulator in BaWue had the responsibility). From a technical point of view Asse is overdone. In other countries this kind of waste is stored in concrete lined landfills (ex France, CSR). From a technical point of view it would make sense to flood it and close it.

[@meerkathero6032]

@@holgernarrog You did not watch the video. 90% of the waste is from nuclear power plants, the records are not complete or falsified, some of the barrels are high toxic and high active waste, no one knows how many, flooding would happen over time and contaminate the ground water of the region, eventually bring the toxic and radioactive wast to the surface again.

[@Sigurdazie]

@@elonmuskes4874Good question… as nearly all Countrys just dump that crap

[@cavemann_]

Very insightful, thanks.

[@stefanStefan-el8ix]

Radioactive waste from Germany was also brought to Eastern Europe...

[@Waldemarvonanhalt]

Ok, so by the look of the containers, which are barrels: Only low- and medium-level waste get stored in barrels instead of concrete casks. Which means that it's effectively almost just regular trash, but underground.

[@EstelonAgarwaen]

The road leading to the mine is part of one of my standard cycling training loops

[@Atom15]

Would change the title since the waste is not leaking and the asse itself is also not leaking.

[@meerkathero6032]

It is leaking!

[@LabGecko]

Have you seen a geological report that the salt mine, with flowing water, will never leak further into the area's water supply? Such a study would surely shine more light on the issue.

[@mrkokolore6187]

Sadly the Asse is often used as an example for nuclear waste treatment when in reality this is no longer the case in Germany where today nuclear waste is one of the if not the most safely handled kind of waste there is.

[@TheHonestPeanut]

Imagine being so thick you still think governments and private energy producers are honest with their safety reports...

[@spacemonk26]

just wait until your economy declines ... slightly... then see how safely they still handle it, and thats not counting the scandals which are probably happening under your nose that you just haven't heard about yet

[@sarahmayer8539]

where is the vast majority of it stored?

[@insynthesiswithinfiniteis2318]

LOL, that's not actually true, there are radioactive waste dumps all over the globe that are nothing but glorified holes and piles like this

[@mrkokolore6187]

@@sarahmayer8539 On-site at the nuclear power plants. There is actually a final storage facility for low and intermediate-level nuclear waste under construction in Germany called Schacht Konrad.

[@Egalitare]

The problem with nuclear waste is most contractors and governments ignore the cost (including security) involved in maintaining and properly containing radioactive waste. I’m not against nuclear power, but any assessment which doesn’t realistically account for spent fuel waste on a 500 year horizon is a generational and environmental failure.

[@SocialDownclimber]

Paying just a single person minimum wage for 500 years to look after such a facility adds a huge cost, over and above the construction cost of permanent waste storage facilities. Pretty sure they would need at least a few well paid people to do so.

[@the_retag]

500? 500000

[@TheRealSykx]

@@SocialDownclimber nothing is permanent is the lesson to learn from nuclear waste storage problems

[@meerkathero6032]

500 years drastically underestimates the time horizon required to safely store the waste.

[@MTobias]

most governments of course take this into account. The full cost of nuclear power incl. waste disposal is around 5ct/kWh.

[@williamkreth]

Very important report thank you

[@franciscovessani6720]

They dumped that in a salt mine??? It was better to hire a geologist. Huge mistake!

[@oljackie35]

60's and 70's before any regulations were wild

[@franciscovessani6720]

@@oljackie35 we know salt is a porous, liquid-sucking layer of rock since way earlier

[@robertvanderlinden2813]

piling nuclear waste in 1964? In 1964 the us was still researching how it could work, all plants that did exist where located in the us and experimental

[@literarynick]

This channel is freaking awesome and I sincerely appreciate quality content like this. Keep it comin'!

[@DWPlanetA]

Hey there! Very glad to hear that you like the video! We post videos like these every Friday. If you want to be notified about new content, subscribe to us ✨

[@bleo8371]

You can see green energy shine trough pitch black night ! :D

[@SylviaRustyFae]

My auditory processin disorder can make certain accents rly hard for me to parse, and this is one of them; so glad for good captionin tho so i dont get too confused I cant even explain what it is rly but like when ya said "former salt mine" at the start, my APD meant i just heard "former mine" and the middle word was just gone until i rewound and listened again even closer (only noticed i didnt catch it tho bcuz youtube sucks and loads the vid and then loads the captions; assumin that no one needs them at the start of a vid ofc 9,9) I cant even pinpt what it is about how ya said former salt mine that made my brain ignore the middle word. I think its just it was said fast enuf that my brain just assumed ya mispoke or smth, as its normal to hear someone start a word wrong and then say the right word immediately. My brain just processes out the word it thinks is superfluous This is hardly the worst case of such tho, your accent is all around quite easy for me to parse; esp moreso when compared to some of the worst examples Heck, in college before i learned how to advocate for myself i got stuck twice in a row with diff Maths teachers who taught calculus and sounded like they were spkin a diff language half the time... And not bcuz of usin maths terms They had very thick eastern european accents and sadly captions dont exist in person; so i was just sat in those classes too confused and i didnt know i cud just drop the class for that reason... Id been raised to believe that if there was ever any problem, it was solely a me problem and i had to overcome it without outside help. So i just tried powerin thru and got a D both times, bringin my GPA low enuf so i cudnt get FAFSA anymore and ruinin any chance i had at higher ed

[@moniquem783]

That sounds rough to deal with. So you know though, I don't have an auditory processing disorder and I couldn't catch former salt mine the first time I heard it and had to rewind it. Even then, if the captions hadn't been there I wouldn't have caught it on the second try. Something about those few words was very difficult.

[@danielpicassomunoz2752]

Why the fork would they just dump them instead of having them neatly stacked?

[@meerkathero6032]

To reduce exposure of the workforce. Dumping is much faster compared to stacking. They knew what they are handling, however tried everything to cover it up. Today's generation and many generations in the future will pay the price for this.

[@DWPlanetA]

Hey Daniel! In the beginning, they have been stacked vertically. To use the space better, at one point it was decided to stack them horizontally. At some point they were dumped with a wheel loader because several could be handled at the same time and less radiation exposure. However, at that point there was no plan of retrieval at any point.

[@oljackie35]

Bcs its 60's and 70's before any regulations when u could dump nuclear waste into lake and sea

[@ElonHusky]

​@@DWPlanetATo reduce labour cost , That's the correct answer

[@user-xq1wz3tp5z]

This explains probably, why A. Merkle ceased the nuclear power program. In U.S. southwest, we also store some nuclear waste in underground salt formations. We had a mistake (hundreds of millions $ +) when a chemical explosion in a storage drum caused a chemical fire (both non-nuclear), this past decade. High level waste must be stored separately, and in different technology to sequester, from low level waste. Britain and France (& Japan) have/had facilities which reprocessed the high level wasted from used fuel (and both experienced significant challenges with the processing, despite good designs). IFF the used fuel (depleted uranium needs storage/reprocessing after only a few % of the uranium has been fissioned, because the byproducts interfere with further fission) is reprocessed, OR is fed into a 'fast' neutron reactor, it can be further fissioned, which (1) yields more power generation from the fuel, and (2) the end products of this further fissioning process have high radioactivity for only ~ 1,000 years. The half life of plutonium is on order of 25,000 years, requiring sequestration for about 1,000,000 years. Very useful research on means of stable sequestration in geologic storage has been done by Alfred Edward "Ted" Ringwood FRS FAA (19 April 1930 - 12 November 1993) [in Australia... invented 'synroc'], and Rodney C. Ewing (in U.S.A. at U. Michigan and Stanford, where now emeritus). I 'think' progress over next 40 years will achieve viable stable storage. In U.S. at Hanford, Wash (site of reactors for plutonium manufacture for WWII bombs), we still have not achieved a good fix. {I had not previously heard of Asse, thank you!}

[@Raygeemusic]

Merkel was the one who authorized this in the first place, before she was chancellor. To shut off the power plants was just because of the elections.

[@hrani]

As a fan of Well There's Your Problem, who did an episode of what can happen when water gets into a salt mine, this looks like a future episode just waiting to happen!

[@alsternerd]

As someone who did protest against the Endlager and Zwischenlager in Gorleben of fucking course I know abaout that. You can visit greenpeaces first Boat, the Beluga, at Gorleben, too. There's nothing nuclear down in Gorleben and yet that mine will not be used to source salt for human consumption.

[@christodoulosst]

Far better "storing" than the ones dumped in the Mediterranean.

[@allyourcode]

It is totally crazy to me that they literally just dumped the barrels instead of stacking them neatly. You'd think that simply dumping would risk compromising the barrels and causing a leak!

[@Atom15]

what is inside is not a liquid.

[@the_retag]

You cant be sure​@@Atom15

[@the_retag]

The barrela were never meant to contain the waste long term inside tge mine

[@MutheiM_Marz]

It‘s low level….basically a glove or pant and plastic wrap…dude thought it was a coolant water or something?? Or maybe a graphite moderator..

[@EportChris]

I wanna know how they got that Mercedes Sprinter down there 😂

[@jamaljames2578]

Always watching from Georgetown Guyana south America 🇬🇾🇬🇾🇬🇾

[@silvertongue3003]

Do you think there’s any turtles living down there in the water?

[@Imwhisper76ontwitch]

Teenage mutant ninja turtles 😂

[@nate8930]

@@Imwhisper76ontwitch :O

[@positive_neutron1351]

Didn't know about this storage story

[@John-pr6sw]

I guess they did notsee that coming

[@vernepavreal7296]

as a blind person I usually enjoy your videos with their voice over in English this one however is very frustrating as I assume there are subtitles but I don't benefit from these Cheers

[@DWPlanetA]

Thank you for your feedback! This was rather exceptional video for its large proportion of German. Please stay tuned for next week's video again. 🌸

[@the_retag]

Is there possibly an option for automatic subtitle readers?

[@vernepavreal7296]

@@the_retag no I've heard of nothing but it would be a great idea Cheers

[@Praecantetia]

​@@the_retagthere is, there's certain screen readers depending on your operating system that allow you to read out subtitles. Alternatively I think the transcript might be usable enough to feed into a translator.

[@Praecantetia]

​@@vernepavreal7296the unfortunate reality of being blind is that experimental software such as computer vision based ones, the thing needed here, are harder to install and test.

[@TheHonestPeanut]

*Sabine Hossenfelder has left the chat*

[@dynamogaming4953]

She is seems really abusive girl thank god atleast you are not her fan 😅

[@TheHonestPeanut]

@@dynamogaming4953 she's a world class nut job.

[@MutheiM_Marz]

And Kyle Hill keep being based.

[@TheHonestPeanut]

@@MutheiM_Marz if by based you mean he's also a dishonest hack then yeah he's based AF.

[@mickj3503]

Steel & salt don't go well together😬 most of those drums will have rusted open by now😬

[@Luca-nx5xf]

Interesting video as usual, but could you please add subtitles too :))

[@DWPlanetA]

Thank you for watching! We have English subtitles - you might just need to turn them on. ✨

[@fyzphilia8689]

This is like the Netflix season ,,ragnarok,, same nuclear dump struggles

[@creativeclash6989]

"it's really warm, actually"

[@adrianappleyard4005]

Really interesting and well documented.

[@DWPlanetA]

Hey there! Glad you like our video. We post videos like these every Friday. Subscribe to our channel to not miss any ✨

[@dipendragahamagar2386]

Informative video as always thanks a lot

[@ProjectPhysX]

9:32 holy f, how could the people in charge have been so incompetent to just dump barrels containing radioactive material into this pit, damaging their seals? It wouldn't be nearly as catastrophic today if they had just properly stacked them. Saved a few Euros back in 1970, now costs billions to fix.

[@neverrl3379]

Too many problems to handle. And all of them come at once.

[@Lee-At-Green-Pheonix-Rc]

Like sweeping dust under the rug ahhhhh someone else's problem

[@laloola]

1st..DW deserve a credit on this news being the world independent news broadcaster 2nd.. We knew there will be an opportunities cost being a nuclear energy country 3rd.. Humans never learn after the chenorbly Russia Nuclear disaster till today 4th.. The human suffering on radioactive side effects will be next in line in the near future 5th.. Respect nature, human will be respected or vice versa 6th.. Last nor least.. Comes 2033, this waste will remain the same coz the clean up is too dangerous and costly for human being. Thank you DW for this great documentary.

[@XSpImmaLion]

Great piece! The way societies and politics are set now, it's pretty predictable what will happen to this site, and several others spread around the world in many nations that face similar or even worse situations. It'll stay there until it starts leaking, at which point people will be evacuated and left without their homes, they family history, their places of origin. And it'll happen this way because of what this piece has shown - even in modern affluent developed nations, the problem is that you get a string of politicians promising to take care of the problem, but never delivering it because it's too costly, and too controversial to touch once they are in power. It's a system set for failure, as is many other large scale costly problems that several nations face. So you can only let things get to a point when the problem becomes impossible to ignore. And then it's reaction and remediation, rather than prevention. You can find many parallels to this - including the one thing that might exacerbate this very issue - Climate Change. The way out systems of governance, justice, politics and whatnot works right now, in several modern democratic nations, points out clearly to the inevitability of letting things escalate to ultimate consequences so immediate measures are needed. This is particularly true for public infrastructure failure. So, and I'm very sorry to say this for the poor people who will be directly affected by this, the most likely scenario for places like that in most nations, is that they mostly depend on luck for living in those neighborhoods, and even entire cities. At some point in the future, the inevitable will happen - radioactive material will leak on water table and contaminate the environment, a large area around it will be deemed unlivable, and then people will be left to scramble to save themselves. That's if the country is in good government hands, depending on who is elected people might not even get any warnings and just find out what happened when it's already too late. And then this zone could be chosen as a dump site, if well contained, because what else could you do there? This is the whole story of places where radioactive waste, toxic trash, and dangerous stuff ends up in. People encroach on it because they don't know, or because they ignored the warnings, and then generations later others will be paying for it. Problem here is that governments, even when they are competent enough to understand the size of the problem, won't touch the thing with a 10 foot pole because it is bound to make them unpopular one way or another. If they spend the money to do it, this will have an economic impact to the nation as a whole, and people unsympathetic to the problem will complain. If they say they won't do anything, then it's the electorate worried with the problem that will attack them. It's a loss no matter how you see it. So they will knowingly or not, try to ignore it as much as possible. And unfortunately, for all the good that the principle of alternance in power can have in funcional democracies, one of inevitable consequences is exactly the type of short term thinking that stops politicians from looking at problems for the long term. Even if we pick Germany itself, there is a contradictory move right there that shows this. And it is directly related to the topic of this very video. You see, despite this very case serving as food for anti-nuclear power types to say that we cannot safely use nuclear power for energy production, the anti-nuclear movement and how it convinced Germany's government to shut down nuclear power plants operations, turning to Russia gas production instead, is partially behind the whole crisis that the country is facing now. So, premeditated reaction based policies that are fueled by FUD will often end in a worsening situation. Which in turn gives and excuse for government to be slow to take action. Which also only worsens the situation. This whole system is why I'm making the prediction that I did. It can sound a bit alarmist and radical, but there are reasons why I think it's gonna go that way. What the people in that town, the site itself, or people vouching for a rational solution need is kind of a kamikaze politician committed to solving the problem no matter what even if it costs him his career, his life and everything else. In other words - a radical. That is very much unlikely to ever be elected. Because this is a problem that the majority of people in the country can continue living their lives ignoring, turning their backs to, and living their everyday lives not really worried about it - until the worse happens. Just like Climate Change.

[@lukasHenchman]

radiactive waste underground where water could be contaminated, they needed a better solution in the first place, or atleast carefully dumb the barrels, and use metal that can last

[@KarinaMilne]

This is how *not* to do nuclear waste, but we are learning every day

[@ottertoaster]

Well well well, it's the Dark serie plot

[@JT-zs8cd]

i did not know so how many rockets needed to throw it into space, beyond our solar system? or can it be reused for something?

[@anikettripathi7991]

Radio activities on waste remains active for thousands years without any external requirements. To make nuclear reactor fully effective we usually keep discarding weak and alive rods that makes it more dangerous. We could always have small reactor for low productivity requirements and use discarded rods completely. It's not possible to provide safety and security for thousands years. Aren't we creating and leaving problems for our own children. Just playing and laughing with children's can't be sufficient we have to keep some resources and leave healthy planet to live.

[@damianthijs5113]

Waste doesn't stay dangerous for thousands of years, especially not low and mid level waste. While yes it will stay radioactive, its not dangerous levels after a few tens to hundred years. Radiation is everywhere, dose is the keyword

[@oljackie35]

Low lvl waste can be recycle, mid and high lvl is stored mostly on site or specialised storage facilities. Its few dozens of times better than coal ash and oil fumes from which millions of people worldwide die from hearth, breathing illneses every year

[@GeraldSeville]

Reminding me of dark series on netflix

[@ghostdevill]

Salt and steel drums with radioactive waist? What were they thinking? Everyone knows that salt corrodes steel! And they still did it!

[@Artoootube]

Thank you for highlighting the problem, I wonder how many of these barrels have already leaked, good luck trying to retrieve them! What a MESS!

[@evilsam4]

Aka another one that didn't watch

[@Iowa599]

What is the air pressure at that depth?

[@TheRealSykx]

They probably regulate it with ventilation, moving air has lower pressure

[@Diamonddavej]

Note that low level waste often contains no radioactive materials at all. This is due to very stringent safety standards, that means everything (except people, mostly) within the fence of a nuclear power plant, is, by default, classified as at least low level nuclear waste and cannot be put into municipal waste. This includes e.g. old computers, office chairs, lights, overalls, tools, shoes, floor tiles, even that sheet of paper that didn’t print properly. When we think nuclear power generates a lot of waste, we’re often misled by low level waste, that is often not actually radioactive.

[@travismoore7849]

This is like a scene from fallout.

[@MackitsI]

@tfolsenuclear should do a video on this I’d like to see what he says on this subject

[@robertchanrussell2010]

I wonder if the US would go to such measures, 600ppl working there, all the time, daily monitoring, trying to keep things safe? From what I understand, the US only pays for new infrastructure, not maintenance. Hence what happened in Texas in the winter a few years ago.

[@adrianthoroughgood1191]

That's not really a similar situation. The problem in Texas wasn't lack of maintenance it was that the equipment wasn't designed to handle temperatures that low. It was a rare weather event much colder than their usual winters. The equipment is owned by private companies who can make more profit by producing and selling less electricity than they can by investing enough to keep running in cold weather to produce a little more electricity. The Texas government chose to leave it to the market rather than requiring them to protect against cold weather as is done in the rest of the country. The "maximise profits" goal is not aligned with the "produce reliable power 100% of the time" outcome that people want.

[@robertchanrussell2010]

@@adrianthoroughgood1191 winterization counts as maintenance. This isn’t just a free market problem in Texas. PG&E and wildfires have been linked to a lack of maintenance. Very sad.

[@meerkathero6032]

​@@robertchanrussell2010 No, gas valves and gas expansion stations got frozen in Texas. They had the choice to install valves with insulation and heating (it is a permanent feature, nothing you equip for winter and dismantle in summer) which are more expensive compared to the normal valve. Downside, the normal valve does not work if it gets really cold. Furthermore, the electricity market prices normally are low in winter. Most companies schedule power plant maintenance for the low profit time in January/ February. This free, unregulated market without any rules for minimum available capacity resulted into the load shedding. The wildfires are in deed a result of poor maintenance (we have projects in 3rd world countries which do a better job).

[@ElonHusky]

You can see Mutants in few years in Txs​@@robertchanrussell2010

[@iamfemo]

A cautionary tale to Lithium batteries and all the other wastes new technology keep producing in our world. Thanks for sharing this.

[@DWPlanetA]

Hey Fami! Glad you liked our video 😀

[@iiilllii140]

@DW Planet A I really appreciate your channel ❤️️👋👋👋

[@DWPlanetA]

Appreciate your feedback! 🌸 You should also go and subscribe to our channel for new videos every Friday! 🌱

[@insynthesiswithinfiniteis2318]

I also really enjoy your coverage, and am very grateful for your solid, and insightful reporting!

[@industrialmonk]

Yes I have a book from 1978( English translation 1979) the nuclear state by Robert jungk. It's very worrying the absolute stupidity of every nuclear state.

[@kdhendidhhd]

All this nuclear waste can be used as fuel in nuclear power plants, it just requires some modifications/upgrades to the plant.

[@DWPlanetA]

For this one it's not an option anymore since the plutonium and uranium there has been mixed with other waste and due to contamination risk would be highly risky and hard to recycle. But in general recycling nuclear waste is an important topic that we are planning to look at one of our future videos! ☢️

[@florinadrian5174]

I could have sword that Dark was fictional.

[@whynotcreatelove]

Thankyou for sharing this with the world.

[@DWPlanetA]

Hey there! Glad you liked our video 😊 We publish every Friday - subscribe to not miss any of our upcoming videos ✨

[@jacobkatzboyd1646]

I'm a huge fan of nuclear waste thank you for posting this

[@FadiFadi00]

Dark show is getting real

[@Stellaknot]

Doesn’t transporting the waste somewhere else create a whole new set of risks and problems in addition to those posed already present. Everyone is going to say not in my backyard but it’s already there and moving it somewhere else temporarily til they find another permanent place doesn’t make sense if they are trying to reduce the overall risk. I’m open to other viewpoints I just don’t get their position considering their interest

[@teddycastor8146]

As a huge fan and proponent of nuclear power; this is why people and governments are afraid. This is horrible at every level and an example of how not to do anything correctly. Omg, wtf fellas?

[@DennisMook-ky6lx]

When you calculate the risks its best to seal of the mines pure cement in try seal as much as possible and move the town away pay out all the land owner well and make a 20 to 50 square kilometres no go zone . Getting it out and moving it is worse it take 50 years more . No one can touch it machines picking day by day meter by meter no way think really hard the people will become more sick

[@user-lz9zy9di2n]

Why no criminal charges

[@bobchannell3553]

The last time I heard anything about this in the US, they had decided on a permanent location out west, but the locals got cold feet and were blocking it. If we had begun using our permanent storage site, we'd probably be dealing with something like the situation described in this video.

[@ChimeraX0401]

Still US is really good at storing nuclear waste because of their idea of putting high level nuclear waste inside a metal cask filled with concrete and decontaminating low level nuclear trash....

[@kansascityshuffle8526]

No

[@nathanlloyd1179]

How you get a dam car down there

[@fra1111089]

At least you have a semi secure place to store nuclear waste. In southern italy the situation is worse. Mafia and other criminal organization has put under the ground thousand o barrel. The problem is that there's farm and houses over it. As a mafia man said "it's worse than Chernobyl"

[@aravinddnivara803]

Germany hid its nuclear waste in unsafe place and went on to talk going green.

[@alherch]

Could you fill the rest of the mine with concrete and be done with it? Even if the barrels are extracted, where do you store them? Land is a limited resource. What a conundrum..

[@DWPlanetA]

Hey there! An expert group looked at different options for Asse II from 2007-2010. The options were retrieval, relocation and filling with concrete. After looking at different criteria, e.g. feasability, time, long-term safety, they came to the conclusion that retrieval is the best option. One of the reasons against filling was for example that it was not safe to say whether long-term safety can be proven for this closure option.

[@gabrielatienza7438]

type of place janemba gets created

[@hafo821]

leaking water with salt and the metal barrels, horrible disaster..

[@johnpark-jones4285]

And in the future the same will happen with the E.V’s that can’t be recycled.

[@Jakel79]

well dont dump it near Bornholm like you used to do with your chemical weapons

[@Mr_clip_dat]

Just fk ed this world up

[@paytonturner1421]

I think there should be a bigger discussion on where to store nuclear waste safely and effectively.

[@DWPlanetA]

Yes! ☢️ Previously we went to explore the world's only high-level nuclear storage in Finland. Watch the video here 👉 kzbin.info/www/bejne/h3eolWiIoNSnfKc

[@insynthesiswithinfiniteis2318]

The truth is that there simply is no safe or effective way to store radioactive waste for the timescales that it will remain dangerous. It is incredibly reckless and irresponsible to keep making it

[@vioheubach3112]

@@insynthesiswithinfiniteis2318 Exactly. It shouldn't be produced at all!

[@insynthesiswithinfiniteis2318]

@@vioheubach3112 Yup, continuing to prop up nuclear fission is super irresponsible, and selfish.

[@eskimo4130]

@@insynthesiswithinfiniteis2318 Nuclear waste today is a mere drop in the ocean compared to the by products from other human consumption. Nuclear is a useful tool, and it'll take us a while to get better at it

[@1964_AMU]

Destruction of atomic waste through laser technology : this is what the Belgians are doing at Myrha in Mol. But feeding the laser is expensive, it requires the energy of one of the nuclear plants for the whole day.

[@bradley7454]

They just gonna pump concrete into it?

[@gazunkafonegazunkafone3492]

Brit here, always being compared economically and industrially to Germany and we berate ourselves relentlessly. How on earth has Germany got the marketing of ‘efficient, great engineering, eco friendly, etc’ when shit like this goes on in Europe. More like a banana republic.

[@terrorizingtheturbin]

Really just salt of the earth nuclear waste 🥁

[@MarlenNurmakov]

Could the waste be stored safely in some dry places like Sahara desert or something?

[@ch.k.3377]

Do you also dispose of your garbage on your neighbor’s property?! Countries that use nuclear power must be aware of the problem and solve it themselves without burdening another country with it!

[@holgernarrog]

Asse is much better than most places in the dessert. It is overdone. Many countries store similar waste in concrete lined land fills. -It was an old Potash mine that was bought for 1/2 M DM in the 60ies. -The waste stored there is low level radioacitve waste as contaminated shoes, clothing, lab equipment. -The biggest source of waste was the "Kernforschungszentrum Karlsruhe" (my father as nuclear regulator in BaWue had the responsibility). From a technical point of view Asse is overdone. In other countries this kind of waste is stored in concrete lined landfills (ex France, CSR). From a technical point of view it would make sense to flood it and close it.

[@MarlenNurmakov]

@@ch.k.3377 just asking

[@TheRealSykx]

@@holgernarrog those same concrete lined land fills will have issues with water and erosion, this waste is on geological timescales, that's the issue.

[@holgernarrog]

@@TheRealSykx Please take in account that it is low level radioactive waste!!! I would assume that these concrete linings will last for several hundred years. The waste consists of used contaminated gloves, towels, lab equipment. Radioactivity is most probably negligible after some centuries. It is more or less the same question as with other landfills as well.

[@derp8575]

No such thing as nuclear radiation. Galen Winsor blew the whistle.

[@jcdenton9969]

"Pump it or dump it, that is ze question." -Mr Bogdanoff

[@Silver2004Avalhadia]

I wonder if the uranium and plutonium waste can be used as fuel in CANDU reactors

[@DWPlanetA]

Theoratically that could be, but in practice not really because the uranium and plutonium in Asse are mixed in with other waste for safety purposes. That's why it would likely be very hard to re-use. 🤔