Germany's nuclear waste search: final status update before site-region proposal due today
Germany's federal repository company BGE publishes a new status report at noon. About a quarter of the country was last deemed potentially suitable for a deep repository; that area is set to shrink further.
Archive image · Photo: Carsten Steger / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
Germany's federal company for radioactive waste disposal, BGE, based in Peine, will publish a new status report at noon on Tuesday in its search for a permanent repository for high-level nuclear waste. According to the federal nuclear waste safety office BASE, it is the last update before BGE submits its proposal for siting regions. An interactive map going live at 2 p.m. is to show how individual areas are classified, with no unassessed grey areas left. BASE said the classification is not yet legally binding.
In September 2020, BGE deemed roughly half of Germany suitable in principle; a year ago that had been cut to about 25 percent of the country. BGE plans to propose regions for surface exploration by the end of 2027. BASE will review the proposal for the Environment Ministry, and parliament will make the final decision.
The repository is to hold about 27,000 cubic meters of high-level waste from more than 60 years of nuclear power and guarantee safety for one million years, with a site to be found by 2050 at the latest. The waste is currently held in 16 above-ground interim storage facilities. Germany shut down its last nuclear plants in April 2023. BGE will explain the update at an online event from 6 to 8 p.m.