Overview

There are currently 15 reactors in operation in Germany. After reunification in 1990, FRG safety officials shut down the four operating reactors in the former GDR following poor safety reports.

In 1998 a coalition of the Social Democrats and Alliance`90/The Greens came into power, resulting in pronounced changes to the previous energy policy. It was intended to irreversibly phase out nuclear energy use for electricity generation. In 2005 a new coalition took power, but did not alter the basic policy.

Safe disposal of all categories of waste is the responsibility of the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS), under the jurisdiction of the Federal Environment Ministry, Nature Protection and Reactor Safety (BMU). To carry out this function, the German Company for the Construction and Operation of Waste Repositories (DBE) was set up in 1979.

As all types of waste are planned to be disposed of in deep repositories, wastes are only separated into two categories; heat-generating and non heat-generating.

L/ILW (non heat-generating):
Between 1965 and 1978 the Asse potassium mine, in Lower Saxony, was used for disposal of these wastes. It was then used as a research and development facility. In January 2010, following concerns over the safety of the Mine, BfS announced their intention to remove all 126,000 barrels.

LLW is stored in each Land in Germany, prior to disposal, which up until recently took place at Morsleben, a former salt mine, in Saxony-Anhalt, in the former GDR. This was last licensed in 1986, and BMU announced in May 1997 that the licence should not be renewed because of the results of a detailed survey. Work is in hand to develop the closure plan for the repository, for which a licence will be required.

A proposal was made to develop a deep repository at the former Schacht Konrad iron-ore mine near Salzgitter, in Lower Saxony in 1981. The longest Public Inquiry in German history took place between September 1992 and March 1993, after which the Lower Saxony Government (headed at the time by the present Federal Chancellor) continued to refuse to grant a licence for the facility, against the wishes of the Federal Authorities. A general licence was finally issued on April 30th 2002, and in March 2006 a court in Lüneburg rejected claims by several local city councils and one local family against it. In April 2007 the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig ruled that the facility could begin operations. Work is now underway to construct the necessary surface and underground facilities, with operations planned to begin by the end of 2013.

HLW/Spent nuclear Fuel:
Repatriation of vitrified HLW from reprocessing in France began in May 1996, following the licensing of the storage facility at Gorleben in Lower Saxony. Subsequent shipments have involved thousands of police in massive security exercises.

Interim storage facilities for spent fuel have been built at Ahaus, near the Dutch border, and at Gorleben, and other at-reactor stores are being developed following the 2000 Agreement. Approval has now been obtained for facilities at all reactor sites, all of which have already begun operation. A pilot spent fuel conditioning plant has also been built at Gorleben, and an operating licence was issued in March 2001.

Up until recently, it was always proposed that for HLW (and possibly spent fuel also), the plan would be to develop a deep repository in a suitable salt dome. However, under the June 2000 Agreement and the 2002 amendment to the Atomic Law, the whole disposal policy was open to re-examination. A small disused salt mine at Gorleben was selected in 1979 as the sole candidate site for HLW disposal, and exploration of the north-east part of the salt dome began in 1986, with the sinking of 2 shafts. Under the 2000 Agreement, work was suspended for a maximum of 10 years, to allow other sites in other rock types to be identified.

In early 1999 the government appointed an Expert Panel, known as AKEnd, to design a new siting process involving widespread public participation. A report describing a new process was issued in December 2002. To date no progress has been made, but BMU favours a further amendment to the Waste Act, requiring that the waste producers should form a new organisation with overall responsibility for repository siting, whilst BMU itself would only be involved in licencing and regulating the facility. A draft of the regulations was published in June 2005, but these fell with the government. No further progress was made.

On March 15 2010 the government announced that the Gorleben moratorium is to be repealed, and work will begin to reassess the suitability of the site. Safety requirements for disposal at the site are to be developed in discussions with the Land government by October 2010, after which underground exploration will restart. A new safety assessment will be prepared by end-2012 and subjected to an international peer review during 2013. Within 7 years a licencing process will be initiated. A public participation process will developed to improve transparency as regards the investigations.