There are 600 metric tons (661.4 short tons) of highly radioactive uranium and plutonium stored in a high-security warehouse on the grounds of a nuclear power plant here. Bonded in ceramic and stored under pressurized helium in cylinders, this spent fuel from the Dukovany plant's four 20-year-old reactors, still gives off enough heat to make you sweat.

The warehouse is full now. Beginning next month, the plant will begin storing its spent fuel in a new adjacent facility, with room to hold 1,340 metric tons, enough space to fulfill the plant's storage needs until its projected decommissioning in 2025.

What happens to the waste after that is another matter.

The state is now courting these towns, hoping to find one willing to one day offer the country's waste a home.

"We will have to rely on nuclear energy in the future," said Vítězslav Duda, managing director of the Radioactive Waste Repository Authority (SÚRAO). "We're trying to find a way to compromise with the public."

That compromise needs to happen, analysts say; the Czech nuclear power industry is in great flux right now. Uranium prices are rising, as is interest in reusing spent nuclear fuel. Government officials and state-owned energy utility companies are hinting at future construction of more nuclear plants.

Deeper underground

The government's ultimate plan for its nuclear waste is tied to the construction of a deep geological repository within the granite massif that underlies much of the country. It is scheduled to open by 2065. Planning and conceptual design of the site began in the 1990s, with six potential sites, all in Bohemia, announced in 2003.

This led to a few problems, Duda said.

"The public didn't welcome it," he said. "With strong opposition, we decided to postpone any further development of the repository until 2009."

Duda's office has not changed its preference to locate the repository in one of the six sites previously selected, and is now reaching out to the towns near these sites by holding meetings, distributing information and talking with mayors. Duda said he also expects that the town chosen will receive an annual financial compensation much larger than the 1.5 million Kč ($68,300) it gives to towns storing low-level waste.

He and other experts attribute public resistance to an ignorance of the true risks and benefits of a repository.

"There is now a very strong consensus with no dissenting views from experts" that geological repositories are the best solution for waste storage, said Derek Taylor, nuclear energy adviser to the European Commission.

Finland and Sweden are both actively constructing such facilities, he said, and other countries with nuclear power are expected to follow suit. There is no current European Union legislation on the issue.

"It's pretty simple," said Jiří Dvořák, mayor of Lodhéřov, South Bohemia, a town near one potential site. "We held a local referendum and 99.72 percent of our citizens voted against storage. We said no to the idea and will not change our position."

If a repository were built below the town, he said, "It'd be like sitting on a time bomb."

František Venkrbec, mayor of Rohozná, South Bohemia, another potential host, was more conciliatory. A previous administration resolutely rejected a repository, he said. But his office is more open to the repository after going on trips to Germany, Switzerland and Sweden with SÚRAO to learn more about the field.

"It is all about information," he said.

By 2010, the Czech Republic will no longer be an energy exporter, and soon after, as the decommissioning dates approach for many domestic coal plants, the country will face an energy shortage, according to ČEZ. Coal provides 40 percent of the country's power and nuclear energy 31 percent.

To tackle this shortage, Czechs have several options, said Jaroslav Vlček, deputy director of the Dukovany plant. These include importing energy (like Hungary currently does), building new coal plants or constructing new nuclear power plants.

If the country goes the third route, he said, ČEZ should begin making plans by no later than 2008. New reactors would first be built at Temelín, which has the infrastructure to support two more reactors, ČEZ officials said.

In September, Industry and Trade Minister Martin Říman stumped for new reactors at Temelín. The following month, President Václav Klaus came out strongly in support of nuclear energy at an informal EU summit in Finland, and Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek publicly supported construction of a new power plant, but not until after Dukovany's decommissioning.

According to ČEZ officials, with proper modernization, Dukovany can remain open until 2035 or 2045.