Preliminary safety analyses in the high-level radioactive waste site selection procedure in Germany

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.