Licensing application for drilling into emplacement chambers notified
BfS determines additional time needed until Asse drillings can start
At the request of the federal government, the responsibility for the Asse nuclear waste repository was transferred from the former operator, Helmholtz Zentrum München, to the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) 28 months ago. The BfS has been tasked with ensuring the safe closure of the facility according to the safety regulations of nuclear law. To fulfil this task, the BfS intensively discussed a suitable approach with other experts and the general public as a first step..
After considering different decommissioning options, it was determined in January 2010 that basically the option to be pursued should be the retrieval of the waste. This was decided in co-ordination with the Federal Environment Ministry being the supervisory authority. All institutions involved agreed, however, that more detailed knowledge of the boundary conditions would be required to be able to guarantee the safety of the population and the staff when using this approach, which has been unprecedented so far. This phase which is referred to as fact finding was planned by the BfS. At the request of the federal and federal state environment ministries, a comprehensive licensing procedure according to nuclear law was initiated for this trial phase..
On 27 October 2010, the BfS as the operator of the Asse mine submitted an application to the competent Lower Saxon Environment Ministry (NMU) comprising of approximately 1000 pages, to get a licence for the first step of the fact finding process, that is, drilling into two representative waste chambers. On 11 March 2011, the licence draft was sent to the BfS, asking for its opinion. Following several further meetings, the BfS – in co-ordination with the Federal Environment Ministry (BMU) as the supervisory authority – informed the NMU about its concerns against the planned requirements on 13 April 2011. These requirements are to some extent far-reaching. Among others, additional long-term planning and implementation works become necessary before drilling works can begin.
The NMU handed over the licence to the BfS on 21 April 2011. This licence comprising approximately 100 pages and 32 requirements differs from the draft to some extent. An evaluation has been initiated as to how much planning and time will be required for implementing the requirements made until one can start drilling.