AkEnd

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The working group for the selection procedure for repository sites (AkEnd) was an independent working group of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety , which started its work in February 1999 and ended in December 2002. His task was to set up scientifically founded criteria for the search for a repository for radioactive waste for the first time . Every previous decision to explore or commission a repository ( Gorleben , Asse , Konrad mine and Morsleben ) was politically influenced. Nobody knows whether salt , granite , clay or another host rock is most likely to be the best way to safely store nuclear waste for millennia. In addition to criteria for geological suitability, the AkEnd should also develop a suitable search process with public participation.

The recommendations of the working group should be discussed in detail with national and international experts and the interested public in order to create transparency and acceptance for later location decisions. A site selection process should only be started after this process has been completed.

AkEnd members were experts from the fields of geosciences, chemistry, physics, mathematics, mining, landfill technology, engineering and public relations.

background

The German concept for the final disposal of radioactive waste was fundamentally changed after the 1998 Bundestag election and the associated change of government. It provided for all radioactive waste to be placed in a single repository , which should be available around 2030. Several locations in different rock formations are to be examined for their suitability and compared with one another. The search should take place on a “ white map ”, without any preference for a specific location.

With the so-called nuclear consensus of June 2000, the governing parties SPD and Greens signed that there was no evidence that the Gorleben salt dome was unsuitable as a repository. This weakened all arguments against this salt dome that had been found until then. Although a temporary moratorium was decided, it was expressly stated that this would not mean the permanent abandonment of the Gorleben repository site. In this context, the court ruling on the Konrad mine (final storage project for non-heat-generating radioactive waste) in March 2006 has a trend-setting component. It is stated therein that, according to the Atomic Energy Act, the best location for a repository does not have to be found as long as the chosen location meets the safety criteria for a repository (which is the case for the Konrad shaft).

Final report and political development

On December 17, 2002, the final report "Selection process for repository sites - recommendations of the AkEnd" was handed over to Federal Environment Minister Jürgen Trittin . This includes five geoscientific exclusion criteria and several geoscientific and social science weighing criteria . The AkEnd emphasizes the need for public participation and underground exploration of at least two locations.

Before that, however, in the summer of the same year, the license was granted for the Konrad shaft as a repository for radioactive waste with negligible heat generation. In practice, this means the abandonment of the "one-repository policy".

In the coalition agreement of 2002, no agreement could be reached to oblige the nuclear waste producers (proportion of the conditioned waste accrued up to December 31, 2007: 53% energy supply companies and nuclear industry / 47% research institutions, state collecting points and other persons obliged to deliver) to finance a new search for a repository. The cost of such a search is estimated at 1.5 billion euros, a sum that can hardly be raised by the Ministry of the Environment. The results of the AkEnd have not been used to date (2006) to look for a location or to further involve the public.

In the judgment of the Higher Administrative Court of Lower Saxony of March 8, 2006 it was determined that a deficiency is not “that alternative locations have not been examined comprehensively and comparatively. Such a location search procedure is not provided for under the applicable nuclear legislation. "

Positions

Opponents of nuclear power generally support the search for a repository on the basis of scientific and social criteria. They are pushing to find a repository for the nuclear waste produced so far in Germany instead of exporting it. They doubt, however, that a location can be found where the geoscientific and especially the social criteria are met. You are ready to take part in the creation of the criteria and the search, but reject any responsibility for the nuclear waste.

Proponents of nuclear power criticize the AkEnd as unnecessary, since they believe that suitable locations have been found in the Gorleben and Konrad nuclear waste storage facility and that the technical aspects of final disposal have largely been resolved. You also criticize the composition of AkEnd as politically one-sided. They do not see the growing quantities of radioactive waste as an unsolved disposal problem, but as the result of a political blockade strategy in which the AkEnd is an important component.

Members

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Higher Administrative Court Lower Saxony: Complaints against Schacht Konrad dismissed
  2. ↑ Federal Office for Radiation Protection, RS manual: Radioactive waste in Germany ( Memento from August 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ^ OVG Lower Saxony , March 8, 2006, accessed October 23, 2008
  4. ↑ Hans Schuh: "Quatschbude" - Trittin's nuclear waste disposal concept threatens to fail - DZ No. 25 of June 12, 2003, p. 29