Announcement - Morsleben final repository

The Bundesgesellschaft für Endlagerung mbH (BGE) is basing the licencing procedure for the conversion of the Morsleben final repository on a new foundation. On 27 July 2017, the BGE withdrew the application for the conversion of the final repository for radioactive waste at Morsleben from the Ministry for the Environment, Agriculture and Energy in the state of Saxony-Anhalt. The aim of the application was the stripping back of facilities that are no longer needed for operation.

The application, already submitted in 2003, made it impossible to bring the procedure to completion in the short-term, due to changes in working processes and the long procedure duration. Following the handover of responsibility for the Morsleben final repository in April 2017, the BGE decided in consultation with the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Construction and Reactor Safety to start the licencing procedure anew. The plan is to continue the procedure in future through individual applications. The conversion of the final repository is a first step in the direction of later decommissioning. The amended licencing procedure will ensure that work on conversion can begin.

Shortly, the BGE will submit to the Ministry for the Environment, Agriculture and Energy for the state of Saxony-Anhalt a first application to change the long-term operating licence of the final repository. The application sets out plans for the operational shut-down of a laboratory and this represents the start of dismantling of the above-ground controlled area.

A range of individual measures are involved in the conversion of the Morsleben final repository, which will adapt operation step-by-step to the situation without further acceptance of radioactive waste. The acceptance of radioactive waste ceased as long ago as 1998. The licencing procedure for the decommissioning of the Morsleben final repository, likewise managed by the Ministry for the Environment, Agriculture and Energy in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, remains unaffected.

View of the Bartensleben shaft at the Morsleben final repository