Announcement - Asse II mine

A total of six different options for how the radioactive waste could be removed from the Asse mine are currently under discussion. On 11.12.20017, a workshop took place at the Bundesgesellschaft für Endlagerung (BGE) in Salzgitter on the “Assessment of retrieval procedures (general concepts)”. This involved the presentation and assessment of different technical procedures for retrieving the waste from the Asse mine. The different retrieval procedures were presented to around 40 participants from the Option Comparison Action Group (AGO), the Asse 2 Monitoring Group (A2B), the Lower Saxony Ministry for the Environment, Energy, Construction and Climate Protection, the state authority for mining, energy and geology, Asse-GmbH and the work group for retrieval concept planning (Arge KR), which is the contractor for designing the plan.

The workshop provided information to important stakeholders about the general plan for retrieval. Subsequent to the presentation of the different retrieval procedures by Arge KR, participants of the workshop debated the pros and cons of the individual retrieval procedures. The ideas and suggestions from the support group were then recorded by the BGE and Arge KR for further revision.

The retrieval procedures that were presented:

1. Long-front mining with horizontal excavation (floor access)
2. Long-front mining with horizontal/vertical excavation (wall access)
3. Long-front mining with vertical excavation (roof access)
4. Sectional/Partitioned mining/construction
5. Shield tunneling with partitional excavation
6. Chamber mining with horizontal excavation

Link to the presentations

• Asse Workshop: Assessment of retrieval procedures
• Explanations of the procedures and the planning works to date (TOP 2)
• Presentation of the different retrieval procedures (TOP 3)
• Pros and cons of the retrieval procedures (TOP 5)

Asse retrieval planning: overview of the chamber groups (KG)