New Safety Requirements in Repository Storage

On August 12, 2008. the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety (BMU) publicized the draft "Safety Requirements in Repository Storage of Radioactive Waste Generating Heat." The reason given for the draft is that the "Safety Criteria for Final Storage of Radioactive Waste in a Mine" adopted by the then Federal Ministry of the Interior in 1983 no longer,were Lip the present state of the art. The draft is Subdivided into nine chapters: "Objectives," "Scope," "Definitions and Explanations," "Purpose and General Goals of Protection," "Safety Principles," "Stepwise Optimization," "Critetia of Protection," "Proof of Safety," and "Repository Design." The BMU draft of the safety requirements is to be discussed at the international symposium on final storage in Berlin oil October 30 to November 1, 2008 planned by the BMU. However, it should also be deliberated by the expert agencies. One of the questions to be examined is whether new requirements as contained in the rules now under discussion would still be in line with the advancing state of the art when a repository would be commissioned around 2030 at the earliest.