In Brunsbüttel and Stade, unknown drones fly over industrial areas, where radioactive waste from decommissioned nuclear power plants is also stored.
Elbe port in Brunsbüttel with offshore LNG terminal Photo: Dirk Jacobs/imago
Reports of nighttime drone flights over the Stade and Brunsbüttel industrial parks are worrying residents and environmentalists. Opponents of nuclear power are concerned about the radioactive waste stored there. “In Lower Saxony, suspicious findings have been made since mid-August 2024 in the Stade area, particularly at night, where there is a visible light that could come from flying objects,” said Svenja Mischel, a spokesman for the state’s Interior Ministry, to TASS.
A connection with the drone allegedly seen flying over Brunsbüttel in Schleswig-Holstein cannot be ruled out. As the crow flies, the two cities are about 40 km apart.
According to Mischel, it is still being determined what type of flying object it is. The companies involved in Stade and the police have already been “appropriately sensitized”. A possible violation of aviation law is being investigated. The Flensburg prosecutor’s office is leading the case.
“There are also combat drones.”
The ChemCoast industrial complex in both cities was also affected by the overflight. Right next to Brunsbüttel is a liquid gas terminal and a decommissioned nuclear power plant, where highly radioactive spent fuel elements are stored without permission in castor containers in the hall.
In Stade, an interim storage facility for low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste is in operation next to a decommissioned nuclear power plant. The Lüchow-Dannenberg Citizens’ Initiative is now demanding rapid improvements in the protection of Germany’s interim nuclear waste storage facility.
BI spokesman Wolfgang Ehmke explains that system security lags behind real threat scenarios. The previously planned construction of a 10-meter high wall around the Castorhalle in Gorleben, which itself is 20 meters high and has a ceiling thickness of only 20 centimeters, is not the answer to the new threat scenario.
There is no flight ban on the two central temporary storage facilities in Gorleben and Ahaus in Westphalia, as they are not on the grounds of a nuclear power plant. “There are not only spy drones, but also combat drones,” Ehmke emphasizes.
