Residents in these areas can breathe a sigh of relief: The federal states of Rhineland-Palatinate, Hesse, Berlin, Saxony and Saarland are no longer part of the ongoing search for a final repository for highly radioactive nuclear waste. This was announced by the responsible Federal Society for the Search for Final Repositories (BGE) in Peine. However, the Bundestag has the final say on the selection of the location.
The further search for a final storage site focuses on areas with the best suitability. That’s less than five percent of the country’s area across Germany. According to the report, regions in Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt are still being investigated. This year, for the first time, the BGE has identified those areas that are good but not ideally suited and are therefore no longer in the running.
For the majority of the areas in Saxony, however, it was already clear that they were either only very little or not at all suitable for a final repository.
The Black Forest is still in the race
In Baden-Württemberg, only two areas in the Black Forest are still in the running. Both the Ulm area with areas in the Swabian Alb and areas in the Electoral Palatinate in northern Baden near Heidelberg will not be taken into account in the search for a location for a nuclear waste repository.
Two regions in the northern and one in the southern Black Forest still have the prospect of being rated as an area in category A (“best suitability”) in Baden-Württemberg. In both regions, the underground crystalline rock (a type of granite), which was rated as suitable, was particularly crucial for the selection.
Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland had been out of the running for a long time. There are no favorable geological conditions for this in either federal state. The Federal Society for Final Storage (BGE) is looking for a location for a final storage facility that will be built underground in salt, clay or crystalline, especially granite.
The former coal mining country of Saarland was no longer listed in the areas that are generally eligible for this in 2020. In Rhineland-Palatinate there are areas in Rheinhessen and the northern Palatinate that would theoretically be eligible for this. However, in 2025 they were classified as low or even unsuitable and are no longer among the areas that were included in the search.
What happens next?
The search for a final storage location for German nuclear waste continues. By the end of 2027, the BGE would like to propose location regions for above-ground exploration to the Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management (BASE). BASE, in turn, evaluates these proposals for the Federal Environment Ministry.
So-called host rocks for the final repository include underground granite and clay formations as well as salt domes. The future deposit should be at least 300 meters underground and surrounded by a layer of rock at least 100 meters thick as a barrier. The radioactive waste should be stored there as safely as possible for at least a million years.
By 2050 at the latest, the storage facility for around 27,000 cubic meters of highly radioactive nuclear waste, which has been generated over more than 60 years of nuclear power, should be found. German nuclear waste is currently stored in 16 above-ground interim storage facilities in various federal states. The last German nuclear power plants went out of operation in April 2023.
Which regions are now in focus?
Parts of Thuringia are still available for selection. However, the areas that are still being examined have decreased, as can also be seen from the latest work status of the Federal Society for Final Storage (BGE).
The region in and around the Sömmerda district has gone through the first two test steps and is being further examined. However, the areas in the Unstrut-Hainich district and in the Ilm district, which were still in the process so far, are not included in the search.
For the vast majority of Thuringia's areas, it was already clear that they were hardly or not at all suitable for a final repository.
Areas for a possible final repository are also continuing to be examined in Saxony-Anhalt. These include rock salt areas in flat and steep slopes as well as parts of the Harz Mountains. The country's clay areas have already been assessed and are no longer in focus, as the Federal Society for Final Storage (BGE) announced.
