Former head of Germany’s Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Disposal (BASE), Wolfram König, has called the federal government’s tentative push to speed up the search for a final nuclear waste repository “inadequate”.
He says the new plans do not match the current security reality – armed conflicts are rising worldwide, and leaving 1,700 Castor containers that hold the radioactive releases from Chernobyl in above‑ground halls for decades would be unacceptable.
König finds it incomprehensible that the Ministry of Environment (BMUKN) is still following the time‑consuming procedural rules of the Site Selection Act (StandAG) when those rules do not directly contribute to safety gains.
The ministry, led by Minister Carsten Schneider (SPD), is drafting an amendment to the StandAG that is meant to accelerate the search for a permanent disposal site. Schneider announced the initiative after it became clear last year that the target date of 2031 set in the current law is no longer realistic. Current estimates by the federal disposal company (BGE) and the monitoring office BASE suggest that the mere selection of a site could take until 2074 under the present legal framework.
The ministry has confirmed that a legislative amendment could make a site decision possible by 2050, but the draft is still in an early “work‑level” stage and the minister has not yet signed it off. Some media outlets have reported on the leaked draft, raising questions about how the new target year will be implemented.
König points out that the draft does not contain an explicit target of 2050 and criticises the lack of a concrete project plan that incorporates all statutory steps. He warns that repeated, unrealistic time promises will undermine the credibility of Germany’s nuclear waste policy.
König served as president of the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) from 1999 to 2017 and, after the office’s reorganization, led BASE until his retirement in 2024.
Given the heightened threat environment, the nuclear‑expert stresses that the repository search must be aligned with political and security realities. “We need to decide how long we can tolerate the higher risk of above‑ground interim storage and, based on that deadline, adjust the search process” he argues. “Today we already have enough information to rule out unsuitable host rock formations and large regions from further consideration”.