(January 26, 2001) In June 2000, the German government and electricity utilities reached an agreement on the phaseout of nuclear energy in Germany (see WISE News Communique 532.5186: "Germany: government and utilities reach agreement on phaseout"). The implementation of the agreement however faces troubles as the parties are battling over a revision of the Nuclear Energy Law, which is necessary to put the phaseout plans into effect. A federal evaluation of safety measures at Biblis A, as required in the Consensus Agreement by August 2000, has not yet been realized.
(542.5241) WISE Amsterdam - Although the four main electricity utilities agreed in principle with the phaseout plan, none of them have yet signed the Consensus Agreement definitively. According to a spokesman of the German Atomic Forum, the agreement "is only tentative" as long as no amendments have been made to the Nuclear Energy Law.
The proposals for amendments are now under review by the Federal Ministries of Environment and Economics and the industry. Disagreement has arisen about the text of a preamble which stated that the "use of atomic energy contradicts the goal of a sustainable energy economy" and that "the risks of nuclear energy use are not acceptable."
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Transports To Ahaus
The accumulation of spent fuel in fuel pools at Neckarwestheim, Philippsburg and Biblis could lead to forced shutdowns. To avoid this, the spent fuel has to be either moved, to Ahaus or abroad, or stored in dual-purpose casks at-reactor sites. In January the Federal Radiation Protection Agency (BFS) licensed utilities to ship their spent fuel to the interim storage at Ahaus. However, German federal and state governments want to prevent these transports of spent fuel, which would take place in early March. Federal regulators are in a hurry to give them licenses for short-term interim storage by the end of February. The three utilities involved, RWE Energie AG, GKN and Energie Baden-Württemberg AG (EnBW) talked with regulators to find a solution for the interim storage. They examined three options: |
The nuclear industry is now concerned that once such a clear statement against nuclear energy is included in the revised law it might be difficult or politically unfeasible to throw out such a preamble in the future.
Further disagreement arose on the legal apportionment of the costs of the phaseout. In the agreement it was laid down that reprocessing will be forbidden from 1 July 2005 and that the utilities should realize on-site interim storage by that date. The Federal Ministry of Environment considers the additional costs for on-site storage to be balanced by the cost savings from canceling transports to Sellafield and La Hague and to the interim storage sites in Ahaus and Gorleben. But industry representatives argued that transports to a national repository must happen eventually as the on-site facilities are only temporary.
According to the agreement, transports within the next 5 years to La Hague and Sellafield are only allowed if the reactor utilities can demonstrate that the separated plutonium will be reused. But about half of the German reactors have no license for burning MOX fuel. If the transports to Sellafield and La Hague were subsequently forbidden, these reactors might be forced to shut down because of a lack of available storage capacity in spent fuel pools. Licensing applications for additional on-site storage facilities have up to now triggered a series of legal suits filed by local intervenors. As a utility executive said to Nucleonics Week: "our operations aren't secured. Without transports to Ahaus, Gorleben, or reprocessors, when 2005 comes along and we have nothing on-site, we shut down."
In an appendix to the Consensus Agreement, the Federal Government declared that they would make a decision by August 2000 on the future restart of Biblis A. In this reactor, a near loss-of-coolant accident happened in 1987. The event was at the time never made public and after it did a storm of protest arose and permanent shutdown of the reactor was requested. The state government of Hesse ordered in 1991 to build a separate bunkered emergency control room to meet possible external event accidents.
But as of today no safety evaluation of proposed measures has been made. In the years since 1991, reactor owner RWE and the state government of Hesse have battled over the licensing of the bunker and more than 50 other safety measures. The proposals are now on the agenda of the federal Reactors Safety Commission (RSK). But RSK chief Lothar Hahn said to Nucleonics Week that his commission was never formally asked to evaluate the safety upgrades since the new members were appointed by the Red-Green government in February 1999.
The emergency bunker might never be realized as RWE has submitted two license requests for an alternative backup system of additional emergency cooling pumps and other technical measures. Insiders think that the Hesse government will accept this much cheaper proposal. To prevent further influence from the federal government, Hesse chief regulator Wilhelm Dietzel sued the federal Ministry of Environment for what Hesse asserts is unconstitutional usurpation of its regulatory powers. But in the end the federal government is most likely to have the last word and might order the bunker room to be built.
Source: Nucleonics Week, 11 January 2001
Contact: WISE Amsterdam