Abstract
Abstract. The Federal Company for Radioactive Waste Disposal (BGE) is responsible for the search for a site with the best possible safety for the disposal of high-level radioactive waste in Germany. The site selection procedure is regulated in a law that was adopted by the German Federal Parliament (Repository Site Selection Act – StandAG, 2017, last updated 2020) and aims to be a participatory, transparent, learning, and self-questioning process based on scientific expertise. The first step of the first phase of the site selection procedure was completed in September 2020 and resulted in the identification of sub-areas that give reason to expect favorable geological conditions for the long-term storage of nuclear waste in the subsurface. These sub-areas cover approximately 54 % of Germany and are located in three different host rocks: rock salt – halite, claystone, and crystalline rock. The challenge for the next step is to find suitable siting regions within the previously determined sub-areas that are then considered further in the next phase of the site selection procedure. In the following, the methodology of the so-called representative preliminary safety analyses is described, which constitute one of the tools to identify siting regions, and some first insight on how they are planned to be implemented in practice is given.
Highlights
The safe storage of nuclear waste is an important societal issue and a challenging scientific endeavor
The site selection procedure started with a blank map and did not a priori specify any areas that should be included or excluded from the search
After the exclusion criteria were applied, the remaining area was investigated by means of minimum requirements (Section 23 StandAG): (1) effective hydraulic conductivity, (2) thickness, (3) depth, (4) area, and (5) long-term barrier integrity
Summary
The safe storage of nuclear waste is an important societal issue and a challenging scientific endeavor. We focus on the site selection procedure in Germany. The aim is to identify the area for the long-term storage of nuclear waste in the subsurface with the best possible safety over a time span of 1 million years. The Federal Company for Radioactive Waste Disposal (BGE) serves as the German waste management organization and is responsible for finding the best site. The Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management (BASE) exercises legal supervision and is responsible for public participation. First a brief summary of the German site selection procedure and the results of the first step are provided. The focus is on the methodology for the current step of the site selection procedure, which includes representative preliminary safety analyses of suitable sub-areas. Hoyer et al.: Preliminary safety analyses in the German site selection procedure
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