Around one quarter of Germany still considered for long-term nuclear waste storage – analysis
Clean Energy Wire / ARD / Tagesspiegel
About 25 percent of Germany’s land area potentially has the conditions suitable for the safe, long-term storage of nuclear waste and remains under consideration for a final repository, according to a new analysis by the Federal Company for Final Storage (BGE). Large swathes of the country have been already ruled out, including the entire states of Rhineland Palatinate and Saarland, and large parts of Hessen and North-Rhine Westphalia since they lack the necessary rock layers. The process of deciding a location for a final nuclear repository is set to still take decades. The loading and sealing of the repository is expected to last well into the next century.
BGE’s new estimate drastically reduces the area potentially considered suitable for storage, down from an estimate of 44 percent last year. Much of northern Germany is still in consideration, although large areas have not yet been evaluated. The task requires finding areas of uniform subsoil rock that are unlikely to shift due to volcanic activity in the long term, which BGE is using computerised geological models to assist. “The more uniform and boring the subsoil is, the more suitable it is for a final repository,” Iris Graffunder, chair of the BGE management board, told broadcaster ARD.
The agency must find a permanent storage site for over 27,000 cubic metres of radioactive material, the equivalent of 13 Olympic swimming pools, that accumulated in the six decades that the country ran nuclear power stations, newspaper Tagesspiegel reported. This means the sites should be able to safely house the highly radioactive waste for one million years. The BGE is to propose sites for above-ground exploration by the end of 2027, which the Bundestag will decide on, after which drilling seismic investigations are to begin in these areas. The agency will also consider permanent above-ground storage options by that time.
The process of finding a safe place for nuclear waste, which began in 2017, is expected to potentially last until after 2070. Environment minister Carsten Schneider said he wants to make the procedure “significantly faster” from 2027, adding “we owe this not least to the people who live in the regions with interim storage facilities.” Over half of the Germany’s environment ministry’s (BMUKN) 2025 budget is earmarked for managing nuclear waste, at a total of 1.4 billion euros.
