Forschung für die Sicherheit des Brennstoffkreislaufs

In the Federal Republic of Germany, different stages have been reached in the development of methods for the production and for the disposal of nuclear fuel elements: From a safety engineering point of view, further research and development of production methods is no longer necessary. With regard to the disposal end of the fuel cycle ('Entsorgung'), the feasibility of interim storage and reprocessing has been a prerequisite for the operation approval of nuclear plant. The licensing approval is currently based on dry storage of irradiated fuel in transport casks (Gorleben, Ahaus); reprocessing contracts with foreign facilities (COGEMA, BNFL);reprocessing in a national facility (WA-350); final storage in deep geological formations (Gorleben, Konrad). Numerous research and development activities on nuclear fuel disposal have been started in recent years; most of these programmes now have been sucessfully completed. The few continuing programmes are concerned with safety engineering and comprise the minimization of the amount of waste, the recycling of plutonium, waste product quality, reduction of radiation exposure, and long-term final storage with and without reprocessing. From the available results, it can be deduced that as regards safety engineering there can be no objection to closing the light water reactor fuel cycle