Statement of BASE President: A question of safety

Wolfram König, President of the Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management Source: BASE

When assessing the pros and cons of a continued operation of nuclear power plants, safety concerns should be paramount. A lifetime extension would also mean another challenge for the search for a final repository in Germany. BASE President Wolfram König comments on the current debate.

Russia's war against Ukraine, which violates international law, has changed the culture of debate in Germany. Heavy verbal artillery is increasingly being deployed in the current nuclear debate. After a decade of joint efforts regarding the safe handling of nuclear technology and its legacy, we are now seeing nuclear power proponents and opponents retreating to their respective trenches once again. The wording used to express a doubtful appreciation of the identified adversary increasingly recalls a confrontation which we long thought to have overcome, and which allowed for a clear friend-foe identification at least in this field.

In the face of fears over insufficient gas supplies in the coming winter, calls for the continued operation of the three nuclear power plants that are still connected to the grid are growing louder at the same time. But the necessary discussion about the actually existing safety reserves of these power plants and the financial burden this will impose on society as a whole is often nipped in the bud by a general accusation of ideology. What falls by the wayside, at least, is a risk assessment based on scientific and technical knowledge.

Periodic safety review indispensable for safety

It is a fact that, for ten years or more, all parties involved have been gearing their strategies, investments, personnel development and planning towards the shutdown of the last nuclear power plants at the end of this year. This concerns not only the energy supply companies, but also expert organisations and supervisory and licensing authorities, and gives rise to the very specific question as to what safety compromises must be accepted for a continued operation.

With a view to the shutdown date, the plants had been granted a special arrangement regarding one of the main pillars of the safety culture - the suspension of the periodic safety review (PSR). This should actually have been carried out in 2019, after 10 years. The importance of such a review for the safety of these high-risk plants becomes immediately obvious when we take a look at France.

Within the framework of a PSR there, a previously undetected corrosion was discovered in a pipe system in a nuclear power plant, which could have led to a loss of coolant and thus to a core meltdown in the event of a rupture. This safety problem, which was discovered in the scope of the PSR, was then also detected in other reactors, and has contributed significantly to the current shutdown of more than half of the French reactors. The PSR constitutes an internationally binding procedure to ensure a continuous increase of safety levels. A safety requirement, by the way, that our neighbours also have towards us, as a protection against possible accidents in German plants.

Safety inspection in state hands for good reasons

Another point - such a serious PSR already takes about two years on the part of the operator before the supervisory authority can start examining the documents submitted by the operator. In any case, public guarantees of safety regarding the operating and even the already shut-down nuclear power plants by representatives of an expert organisation cannot replace this fundamental legal claim, confirmed by the highest courts, to a dynamic development of the safety level in the case of a lifetime extension. And such statements underline the accuracy of the German safety architecture: determining nuclear power plant operators’ compliance with safety requirements is the final task of state authorities, and not that of private companies with economic interests.

In this context, it is worth recalling another internationally required division of tasks - the regulatory separation of the safeguarding of energy industry interests and the responsibility for nuclear safety. This is to prevent the subordination of safety aspects to other interests within an authority. Especially in view of the ongoing debate on security of supply, this is an important division of responsibility.

It is well known that a so-called stretch operation of the remaining plants can only make a very limited contribution to gas substitution over the next winter. The legal, financial and organisational effort required for this would be difficult to justify, even ignoring the safety aspects. The stress test initiated by the Ministry of Economics is intended to provide a further basis for a renewed political assessment of supply security. A second aspect will be the evaluation of an actual lifetime extension that might, as some hope, open the door to a fundamental reversal of the decision to phase out. But what costs would this incur for society as a whole?

Nuclear phase-out is the basis for the search for a final repository

In a unique historical window of opportunity following the Fukushima disaster, a fresh start was made for the disposal of the highly hazardous radioactive waste from German nuclear power plants. Once the fundamental question on the use of nuclear energy had been solved and the decision to phase out nuclear power had been made in 2011, both opponents and supporters of nuclear power set out to jointly write this last chapter of the use of nuclear power in Germany. Today, ten years later, a safe final repository site is still a long way off.

In recent years, my Federal Office has fulfilled its responsibility to repeatedly urge the company in charge of the site search for progress in the procedure, so that the timetable set by law - to have found a site by 2031 – will be met. It will then take another 20 years until a final repository is ready for operation. Today, unfortunately, I have to state that I no longer consider the target date of 2031 to be realistic. Nevertheless, it is of central importance for the long-term safety of future generations to persistently follow the path to a final repository. In this situation, extending the operating lives of nuclear power plants would not only be an additional burden on the disposal issue - the hard-won social consensus would be challenged fundamentally, too.

The peaceful use of nuclear energy, which has lasted for more than 60 years, has accumulated high-level radioactive waste in both German states, which is stored in so-called Castor casks in 16 locations throughout the Federal Republic. They can guarantee storage safety for a limited period of time. They are not a permanent solution. This waste is stored in about 1900 casks.

Renewable energies are the future-oriented alternative

The great risk potential of these interim storage facilities becomes clear by comparison. The maximum total activity authorised for each CASTOR cask is about the same as the total activity released at Chernobyl. And there is something else that the live images from the war in Russia have made obvious - a warlike attack on nuclear facilities that had previously been excluded from safety considerations.

In view of these major unsolved tasks, the high-risk potentials, and following decades of debates on sustainable management, social transformation and intergenerational justice, do we really want to open the door to the production of one of mankind's most dangerous waste materials once again?

The alternatives are obvious: renewable energies and the potential for savings. An arduous but safe path to the future.