Statement by BfS personnel on the long duration of proceedings in retrieving the wastes from the Asse mine
Most recently, there were media reports about a statement given by a division of the Federal Office for Radiation Protection, who had made critical remarks as to the long duration of proceedings relating to retrieving the wastes from the Asse mine so far. Against what background was this paper written and what does it mean for the further work of the BfS?
In the first place, the following is noted: There is no re-evaluation or repositioning of the BfS. The federal government had transferred the operator’s responsibility to the BfS at the end of 2008 with the aim to safely close the Asse mine. Also according to the current state of knowledge, the long-term safety of man and environment with regard to effects caused by the radioactive wastes stored in the Asse mine can only be achieved through retrieving the wastes. However, the following is clear: If the individual steps of the procedure continue to require so much time, it will be increasingly impossible to close the mine in this way because of the bad state the mine openings are in. The BfS therefore initiated an expert talk in January with the objective to identify acceleration potentials.
Background of the statement and its history
The BfS experts have the duty to inform the BfS management about all information and evaluations relevant to the safety of the facility and the mining operation. The statement includes estimations as to the mine’s safety and the previous experiences with the nuclear licensing procedure assuming worst case scenarios. In their statement the authors had listed numerous critical points and emphasised in summary that it was not possible to conclude the trial phase before 2025 should the previous long-lasting procedures be maintained. If one transferred the previous experiences to the overall process, the entire retrieval could even be completed as late as in 2040. It was unclear whether the mountain would allow the BfS so much time for retrieval.
This statement of the employees is a basis on which the BfS and the other parties involved will evaluate the mining safety and reserves. It is no concluding evaluation. The statement is a discussion paper and thus no position paper of the BfS or a basic re-evaluation of the overall situation in Asse. That will require the expertise of other BfS experts involved in the remediation of Asse, such as radiation protection experts, who carry out the basic radiological evaluation in terms of population, staff and environment. The critical view at stability is not coupled to a certain decommissioning option. Corresponding nuclear licensing procedures and thus corresponding time required would also have to be applied to alternative decommissioning variants such as relocation or complete backfilling.
After having read it, the management had forwarded the paper to the supervisory authority, the Federal Environment Ministry, and pointed out the further evaluation procedure. The BfS invited involved experts and institutions to an expert workshop on 18/19 January to the Braunschweig city hall. On this occasion it was planned to debate open questions relating to the retrieval of radioactive wastes from the Asse mine in a transparent way and on a scientific basis. The head of the BfS department responsible for the Asse mine had already provided information about the facts on the occasion of a meeting of the Asse-2 Monitoring Group on 2 December 2011.
Third parties gave the statement to the media
The Federal Environment Ministry distributed the statement on 20 December 2011 in the scope of a meeting of the Waste Management Commission. Subsequently the discussion paper was given to various media by third parties, indicating it was a technical re-evaluation of the BfS according to which it was no longer possible to retrieve the wastes from the mine.
You can download the so-called Memorandum (in German):
The expert workshop in January will deal with the analysis of uncertainties relating to the retrieval of the Asse wastes, but the focus will be on the identification of acceleration potentials for retrieval. However, retrieval can only be realised if all parties involved jointly support the acceleration options and – as has been assured when transferring the responsibility for the Asse mine to the BfS - if all parties jointly work for the safe decommissioning of the Asse mine.
As to whether it is possible to retrieve the wastes, will depend on the results of the fact-finding, i.e. the knowledge of the actual situation in selected emplacement chambers.