The newly elected federal government consisting of SPD, Greens and FDP currently sees no reason for a faster conversion of the research reactor FRM II, which the Technical University of Munich (TU) operates on the campus in Garching, from highly enriched uranium to a low-enriched fuel or to suspend the reactor until such a changeover. This was the result of a question from the deputy leader of the Left Party in the Bundestag, Munich MP Nicole Gohlke.
Environmentalists and international nuclear rights activists fear that the uranium from such highly enriched fuel rods, if it gets into the wrong hands, could be processed into nuclear weapons.
In its response to Gohlke’s question dated April 5, the FDP-led Federal Ministry of Science emphasizes that the federal government supports international efforts to convert research reactors to fuel with less enrichment – “provided this is technically and economically feasible and the quality of the research continues to improve high level”.
On the basis of this line of reasoning, the TU has been pointing out for years that although research is being carried out emphatically, no lower-enriched fuel tailored to the specific requirements of FRM II has yet been found, although other reactors have already been converted.
“Absolutely incomprehensible” is what Nicole Gohlke, a member of the Left Party in Munich, thinks of the Federal Research Ministry’s position.
(Photo: Friedrich Bungert)
According to the original agreement, the Garching research reactor should have been converted by 2010, but the federal and state governments extended this deadline until 2018 in consultation to be expanded again: by the end of 2022, the researchers should present results, on the basis of which a political decision should then be made in 2023, so that the TU can apply for a conversion by the end of 2025 if possible. The aim is a conversion “at the earliest possible time”.
The Greens in the state parliament criticize the planned transport of nuclear waste to Ahaus in North Rhine-Westphalia
According to its current answer, the federal government sees “no further need for adjustment” to this timetable; the plant has a legally valid operating license. That was “absolutely incomprehensible,” Gohlke criticized, given the fact that the Greens were some of the government’s harshest critics of the reactor. The left-wing politician demands that the research reactor should no longer be allowed to be operated with highly enriched uranium, especially since the final storage of the resulting nuclear waste has not yet been clarified.
The Bavarian Greens have been campaigning against the continued operation of the reactor with highly enriched uranium for a long time and accuse the Bavarian state government and the TU as the operator of the FRM II of ignorance of nuclear law provisions and international agreements.
Of course, there will be pressure from Bavaria to push the conversion of the Garching research reactor through the Federal Environment Ministry, which has meanwhile been led by the Greens, says Claudia Köhler, the budget spokeswoman for the Greens parliamentary group in the state parliament. The Unterhachingerin sees good chances that something will happen in this term of office, because the Greens are now coalition partners in the federal government.
“There will be no more delaying tactics like in the past,” says Köhler. However, she also objects to only pointing to the federal government and refers to the responsibility of the Bavarian state government: “The FRM II is an institution of the Technical University of Munich.”
Employees at the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz research neutron source in Garching use dummies to test the planned first transport of spent fuel elements from the research reactor to the Ahaus interim storage facility.
(Photo: Bernhard Ludewig/dpa)
At the research reactor in Garching, meanwhile, people are getting ready for the removal of spent fuel rods. When the research neutron source was put into operation, it was already agreed that it should be stored in the nuclear waste interim storage facility in Ahaus, North Rhine-Westphalia, until it was taken to a repository for radioactive waste; such a repository in Germany must of course first be found.
Employees at the Heinz Maier Leibnitz Center in Garching (MLZ) have already used dummies to test the loading of specially developed Castor casks, in which five fuel elements can be transported. These are to be brought to Ahaus by land in a special vehicle. Both the transport and the storage permit in the interim storage facility are still pending. This must be granted by the Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management before a transport can go on a journey. According to the Federal Office, both approval procedures are still ongoing.
The Greens criticize the planned transports: In this way, the spent fuel tank at the Garching research reactor, which with 47 occupied places has almost reached its maximum capacity of 50, would empty again and clear the way for continued operation with the previous fuel.