On Wednesday, 18 October 2023, drilling work will commence on the Remlingen 18 exploratory borehole. The area to the east of the Asse II mine is fundamentally suitable as a site for the Asse 5 shaft, which is needed in order to retrieve the radioactive waste. The borehole will be used to definitively confirm this suitability and to determine the basis for planning the shaft lining.
Drilling work will continue until spring next year
The planned borehole will reach a depth of 900 metres. The distance from the existing mine cavities is around 250 metres. During drilling work, cores will be obtained on an ongoing basis. These cores will then be examined in the laboratory and will provide key insights into the course and properties of the various rock layers. Drilling work is scheduled to end in the first half of 2024 and will be immediately followed by a full analysis of the samples.
Access to the former agricultural road running alongside the drilling site cannot be ensured for the duration of construction work. The extent to which this access can be ensured after the work’s completion is yet to be examined.
The total costs of all relevant work in the course of drilling the exploratory borehole R 18 are expected to run to some €9.5 million.
Environment and conservation
The clearing of the site and the initial development measures required an intervention in the surrounding woodland. This also affects parts of the European special area of conservation (SAC) on the Asse mountain range. To counterbalance these interventions, the BGE is creating compensation biotopes and implementing additional environmental and conservation measures. These include the installation of bat boxes and the establishment of habitats for common lizards in the immediate vicinity.
About the BGE
The BGE is a federally owned company within the portfolio of the Federal Environment Ministry. On 25 April 2017, the BGE assumed responsibility from the Federal Office for Radiation Protection as the operator of the Asse II mine and the Konrad and Morsleben repositories. In addition to the decommissioning of the Gorleben mine, its other tasks include searching for a repository site for the disposal of high-level radioactive waste produced in Germany on the basis of the Repository Site Selection Act, which entered into force in May 2017. The Managing Director is Dr Thomas Lautsch.
