Heated Compartments
Railroad cars carrying some 123 tons of nuclear waste glow red-hot in an infrared picture taken in Valognes (map), France, in November and released by Greenpeace International as part of an antinuclear-power campaign that included arranging protests that delayed the train's progress.
The train is hauling a so-called CASTOR convoy, named after the type of container carried: Cask for Storage and Transport Of Radioactive material. These trademarked casks have been used since 1995 to transport nuclear waste from German power plants to France for reprocessing, then back to Germany for storage.
"High-level waste is in fact hot," said nuclear energy and proliferation expert Matthew Bunn. "It doesn’t mean anything in particular in terms of how dangerous it is."
(Related pictures: "Leaking Nuclear Waste Fills Former Salt Mine.")
—Brian Handwerk
Pictures: "Red Hot" Nuclear-Waste Train Glows in Infrared
Nuclear waste glows red in new thermal pictures of a controversial European train. But does that mean it's dangerous?
