No. 10/18 – BGE and BGR sign cooperation agreement

22 August 2018

BGR provides support for the repository site selection and repository projects

On Wednesday, 22 August 2018, Dr Ewold Seeba, Acting Chair of the Management Board of the Bundesgesellschaft für Endlagerung (BGE), Dr Thomas Lautsch, Technical Managing Director of the BGE, and Prof Dr Ralph Watzel, President of the Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR), signed an agreement on cooperation in the area of the repository site selection as well as in the Asse, Konrad, and Morsleben projects.

The cooperation is based on the role of the BGR as the central institution of the Federal Government in the field of geosciences and the legally standardised tasks of the Federal Government to be performed by the BGE according to the Repository Site Selection Act and the Atomic Energy Act.

The agreement applies for the duration of the site selection procedure according to the StandAG as well as for the transfer of tasks according to the Atomic Energy Act for the construction, operation, and decommissioning of the Morsleben and Konrad sites. The BGR is also supporting the BGE with its geoscientific expertise in the decommissioning of the Asse II mine. As part of the cooperation in the site search, the BGR will investigate specific issues on behalf of the BGE and thereby support the BGE in the search for a site with the best possible safety for a facility for the final disposal of high-level radioactive waste. The BGR will also carry out task-related research and development work on behalf of 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. 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 directors are Dr Ewold Seeba (Acting Chair), Professor Hans-Albert Lennartz (Commercial Manager) and Dr Thomas Lautsch (Technical Manager).

The BGR is a higher technical and scientific authority in the portfolio of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi). It advises the federal ministries on geoscientific and geotechnical issues relating to the final disposal of radioactive waste. The BGR is networked nationally and internationally in repository research and investigates the properties of potential host rocks and geotechnical barrier materials in its own research facilities as well as in international underground laboratories.