Short information about the Asse II mine

The Asse II mine is located in the district of Wolfenbüttel, Lower Saxony. From 1967 to 1978, around 47,000 cubic metres of low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste were emplaced there on behalf of the federal government. The facility has only been under the purview of nuclear law since 2009. According to current knowledge, the only way to prove the facility’s long-term safety is to retrieve the radioactive waste. Retrieval has been legally mandated since 2013, and the BGE presented its retrieval plan in April 2020.

The pages below provide background information on the facility’s history, the radioactive waste emplaced in it, and the legal mandate for retrieval, as well as the various actors involved and their respective areas of responsibility.