L'Allemagne sort du nucléaire ? ou pas ?

[energy_isere]

Completion of German waste repository delayed

15 June 2023

Work to convert the former Konrad iron ore mine into Germany's first repository for low and intermediate-level radioactive waste (LLW/ILW) is running about two years behind schedule, according to the country's federal radioactive waste company, Bundesgesellschaft für Endlagerung (BGE). The repository will not be completed in 2027 as planned, it said.
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https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Arti ... ry-delayed

[energy_isere]

Les Allemands avaient éliminé Gorleben comme stockage longue durée des déchets hautement radioactifs.

Gorleben (ancienne mine de sel) sera remblayé (backfilled) complétement.

Gorleben mine to be backfilled

16 August 2023

A contract has been awarded for the backfilling of the former salt mine in Gorleben, Lower Saxony - previously considered a possible site for geological disposal of Germany's high-level radioactive waste.

Exploration work on the Gorleben rock salt formation as a potential radioactive waste repository site began in 1977. The federal government gave its approval for underground exploration at the site in 1983, and excavation work began with the sinking of the first of two shafts in 1986. Work continued until June 2000 when, alongside plans for the eventual phaseout of nuclear power in Germany, a three- to ten-year moratorium was imposed on the Gorleben exploration work. This moratorium was lifted in March 2010.

In July 2014, the federal government and the state government of Lower Saxony agreed that the mine workings that had been kept in operation and the surface installations would be scaled back to just the size needed to keep the mine open. In addition, the safety installations were reduced to the level of a normal industrial facility. Underground, the areas that were no longer needed in order to keep the mine open have been decommissioned and sealed off.

On 28 September 2020, waste management organisation Bundesgesellschaft für Endlagerung (BGE) published a list of potential storage sites for Germany's radioactive waste. The list followed parliament's approval three years earlier for a science-based search for a site. It identified 90 areas covering 54% of the country's surface area as potentially geologically suitable. After the application of minimum requirements and exclusion criteria, 139 salt domes were initially under consideration as a repository site. However, the Gorleben salt dome and 78 other salt domes were excluded from the site selection process by applying the geoscientific weighing criteria. The Gorleben mine was officially closed in September 2021.

BGE has now awarded a consortium comprising Redpath Deilmann GmbH and Thyssen Schachtbau GmbH a contract to backfill the mine using the salt stored above ground. Around 400,000 tonnes of rock salt are currently stored there on a salt heap.

The work can begin once the mining permits have been obtained, according to current estimates around the middle of 2024. The backfilling work is currently estimated to take three years to complete.

"By signing the contract, we are taking the first big step towards closing the mine in Gorleben," said BGE Technical Managing Director Lautsch. "The striking salt heap will now gradually disappear and the exploration mine will be filled step by step."

The Gorleben mine is to be closed in phases. After the mine workings have been backfilled, the two shafts will be backfilled via another construction contract (phase 2) that is yet to be tendered. Finally, in a final order, the site will be made usable again (phase 3).

https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Arti ... backfilled

[energy_isere]

suite de ce post du 7 janvier 2023 viewtopic.php?p=2360539#p2360539

Grafenrheinfeld reaches new decommissioning milestone

24 August 2023

The process of treating, cleaning and emptying the 14-metre-deep fuel element storage pool at the Grafenrheinfeld nuclear power plant in Germany has been completed. It follows the emptying and cleaning of the reactor pool at the end of last year.


PreussenElektra said that the latest landmark moment meant the plant was now at the "free of water" stage of decommissioning.

The next stage of the project is dismantling the 400-tonne reactor pressure vessel, which is due to begin in November and take around eight months to complete.

Plant manager of Grafenrheinfeld (KKG), Bernd Kaiser, said: "With this milestone, we have now managed almost half of the nuclear dismantling of the KKG. I am proud of the great achievement of my dismantling team and look forward to tackling the next dismantling projects together with them."

The 1275 MWe (net) pressurised water reactor achieved first criticality in December 1981 and was connected to the grid in the same month. It entered commercial operation in June 1982.

In August 2011, the 13th amendment of the Nuclear Power Act came into effect, which underlined the political will to phase out nuclear power in Germany. As a result, eight units were closed down immediately: EnBW’s Phillipsburg 1 and Neckarwestheim 1; EOn's Isar 1 and Unterweser; RWE's Biblis A and B and Vattenfall's Brunsbüttel and Krümmel. As part of the 13th amendment to Germany's Nuclear Power Act, Grafenrheinfeld lost its authorisation for power operation and was finally shut down on 27 June 2015.

PreussenElektra applied for the decommissioning and first dismantling permit in 2014 and received it in 2018. In this first approval procedure, the company described in detail the concept for the entire dismantling of the system and the measures planned for this. PreussenElektra split the application for the individual dismantling scopes into two steps. The dismantling of the plant began in April 2018 with the granting of the decommissioning and dismantling permit. The second dismantling permit, which was granted in December 2022, for which the application was submitted in December 2019, includes the dismantling of the reactor pressure vessel and the biological shield surrounding it.

Since dismantling began at KKG, the fuel elements have been removed from the plant, more than 12,100 components have been removed and around 3100 tonnes of material have been dismantled. This material has been dismantled, cleaned and measured several times in the waste treatment centre. The internals of the reactor pressure vessel were already completely removed as part of the first dismantling permit.

lire https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles ... ing-milest