Overview
- The first convoy, which left Jülich late Tuesday, reached the Ahaus interim storage around 2 a.m. Wednesday without major incidents, according to Münster police.
- Roughly 2,400 officers secured a convoy of about 100 vehicles with a helicopter in support, and observers tracked a route over the A44, A57, A42, and A31 after authorities kept the path confidential.
- The operation will move 152 Castor casks holding about 300,000 fuel pebbles over many nights, often in small groups of up to four trucks, in what police unions warn will be a sustained strain on staffing.
- Protests stayed peaceful and relatively small, with police counting about 27 people in Jülich, roughly 380 at two events in Ahaus, and a small vigil in Duisburg that did not slow the transport.
- Courts allowed the transfers after the federal nuclear regulator BASE approved them in August 2025, as Jülich’s storage permit lapsed years ago and Ahaus serves only as a temporary site in the absence of a German final repository.