Nuclear rods? "We throw them in the sea"

Revealing and worrying words, which serve here to illustrate the hidden processes at work and the dangers inherent in the nuclear energy industry, were published in a press interview with journalist Freda Meissner-Blau (84) in the Austrian newspaper Presse am Sonntag on 3rd June 2012 under the banner Letzte Fragen (Last Questions) by reporter Bettina Steiner.

Translation here:

I was a translator for the nuclear industry in Paris . . . they wanted to sell graphite-type atomic reactors in England and Germany and I had to translate the product description. Therefore they assigned to me two engineers to explain the words not to be found in any lexicon. One day I asked: What do you actually do with the spent fuel rods? One said only: "Stupid question" and slammed the door behind him. The other told me they were looking here and there to find a solution. "At present we do it like this," he explained, "A robot cuts up the fuel rods and we put them in liquid glass which is then covered with steel and then cover the steel with concrete. Then we throw them in the sea." How long will it hold? "We can't test that in the laboratory" but he thought it was "500 years." That was the end of my translating career with the atomic industry.

a nuclear-free beach . . . for now