Environmentalists in Bavaria have renewed their criticism of the continued operation of the research reactor (FRM II) in Garching with fuel from highly enriched uranium. The background is the announcement of an agreement negotiated at the end of 2020 between the then CDU-led Federal Ministry of Research and the CSU-led Bavarian Ministry of Science, which extended the deadline by which the FRM II had to be converted to a lower-enriched fuel. It only vaguely mentions a conversion at the “earliest possible time”. In doing so, politicians are giving the Technical University (TU) Munich, as the operator, a “free ticket” for continued operation under illegitimate conditions, criticize the Bund Naturschutz in Bayern, state politicians from the Greens and the Munich Environmental Institute.
With the agreement, the Söder government and the former federal government tried to undermine the nuclear law, says Hauke Doerk, nuclear officer at the Environmental Institute, which has now published the agreement. “The wording practically justifies delaying the conversion from highly enriched uranium to lower enrichment forever,” said Doerk, who also criticized the state government for not considering it necessary to inform the public.
From the point of view of the Federal Nature Conservation Agency (BN), the agreement is “another attempt by the Technical University of Munich to further delay the conversion”. It gives the impression that the ministries and the TU are “doing things together, and neither of them has any serious interest in implementing the nuclear law provisions,” says BN state chairman Richard Mergner. “The action encourages us to continue to vigorously pursue the ongoing lawsuit against the illegal operation of the reactor.”
Using more fuel elements with up to 93 percent enriched uranium, as the TU is doing at the FRM II in Garching, is irresponsible, according to the critics. If they fall into the wrong hands, they could potentially be used to manufacture nuclear weapons under certain conditions, even when they have been burned down. Under the keyword “proliferation”, the international world community has therefore committed itself to refraining from using highly enriched uranium in the use of nuclear power and instead using less enriched uranium.
The FRM II, on the other hand, has been running with highly enriched uranium since it was licensed to operate in 2003 – albeit under the premise of quickly switching to lower-enriched fuel. According to the chairwoman of the environmental committee in the Bavarian state parliament, the Greens member of the state parliament Rosi Steinberger, the adherence to highly enriched uranium is a “severe setback for the worldwide attempt to restrict the proliferation of nuclear weapons-grade material”.
Originally the date of the conversion was 2010, later it was postponed to 2018. But even since then, according to the TU, no fuel with a lower uranium enrichment has been available that would have been suitable for the special design of the reactor and would have made conversion possible from a technical and economic point of view. The critics, in turn, doubt this and refer, among other things, to other reactors worldwide that have already been or are being converted.
A research group at the FRM II has examined three variants for a low-enriched fuel over the past few years. A spokeswoman for the reactor confirms that these research results will be available by the end of 2022. A political decision on the conversion should then be made by 2023, and the necessary approval process is scheduled to be initiated at the end of 2025.
While the political discussion is picking up speed, the research reactor itself has been idle for two years; in March 2020, radioactive carbon was released into the air during cleaning work; The corona pandemic followed, and most recently important functional parts had to be replaced. A spokeswoman says it is not yet clear when the reactor can start up again.