Germany excludes over half of its territory in search for long-term nuclear waste storage
威力彩玩法 / ARD
The BGE (Federal Company for Radioactive Waste Disposal) has published an on the status of Germany鈥檚 search for a final storage site for nuclear waste. The report includes an of Germany showing areas it has tested so far, and those found to be unsuitable for the repository, which must keep around 28,100 cubic metres of radioactive material safe for hundreds of thousands of years. The latest status report detailed the BGE鈥檚 assessment of 13 sub-areas, which ruled out sites that failed to meet safety requirements. This narrows the search to 44 percent of the country鈥檚 land, public broadcaster ARD .
The BGE began its search in 2017, following Germany鈥檚 2011 commitment to phase out nuclear power. Previously planned repositories at sites such as Gorleben were abandoned after fierce protest from residents. The BGE then began its work by viewing Germany as a 鈥渂lank map鈥� on which any location with the right geological conditions could be identified as a potential storage site.
BGE chair Iris Graffunder said that from now on, the BGE would publish status reports annually, allowing the public to follow聽its progress. German environment minister Steffi Lemke welcomed the planned yearly updates as an important measure for transparency. 鈥淭he regular publications will allow everyone in Germany to see that the BGE is on schedule for the end of 2027,鈥� Lemke said. 鈥淲e can and must find a final repository site by the middle of the century. We owe this to the people who live in the regions with interim storage 蹿补肠颈濒颈迟颈别蝉.鈥�
The government agency is to complete its Phase 1 tests聽by 2027, when it is聽scheduled to submit its final proposal to the Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management (BASE), with a shortlist of suitable sites for further exploration in Phase 2 of the search.
Highly radioactive waste聽is currently held at 16 interim storage facilities close to Germany鈥檚 decommissioned nuclear power plants, the last of which went offline in April 2023. Germany had aimed to select a location for the final repository by 2031, but in 2022 the BGE pushed the deadline until at least 2046.聽A聽recent report commissioned by the BASE found that the process could take until 2075, but the environment ministry disputed these findings, saying they did not account for recent progress that has accelerated the search.
