FAQ: The long search for a nuclear waste repository

Around 27,000 cubic meters of highly radioactive waste must be stored permanently and safely. A final repository should be found by 2050. The search has now been narrowed down further. How must a final repository be determined?

FAQ Highly radioactive waste Where a final repository is still possible As of: October 27, 2026 • 6:12 p.m

Decades of nuclear power plant operation have resulted in around 27,000 cubic meters of highly radioactive nuclear waste in Germany. This corresponds to 10,500 tons of heavy metal that were or will be packed in around 1,900 Castor containers. This garbage must be stored safely. But the search for a camp was difficult from the start and was accompanied by violent political disputes.

The Federal Society for Final Storage (BGE) is responsible. According to their own information, their goal is to determine the location with the best possible safety for the final repository for highly radioactive waste. The location is intended to provide security for a million years.

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With the federal company's status of work published for the last time today, the areas eligible for a final repository search have been significantly reduced once again. The area that is now being further considered corresponds to less than five percent of the federal territory, said BGE managing director Iris Graffunder. The areas under consideration are therefore located in particular in a belt from western Lower Saxony to Saxony-Anhalt. Individual areas in southern Brandenburg, western Baden-Württemberg, eastern Bavaria and areas in Schleswig-Holstein also come into question. The results are published on the BGE website as an interactive map.

Rhineland-Palatinate, Hesse, Berlin, Saxony and Saarland are no longer part of the ongoing search. According to the information, Saarland was already excluded in 2020, Rhineland-Palatinate was eliminated in 2025, and Saxony, Berlin and Hesse were eliminated this year. Hamburg is also out of the question.

Which areas are still being worked on in the search for a final repository - and which are no longer being worked on? bge

The BGE has been responsible for the search for a final storage facility since 2017. In 2020 she presented an initial work status. At that time, 90 areas were classified as potentially suitable for a final repository, 54 percent of Germany's area. Since then, the experts have set the safety requirements slightly higher in each test step and cover seven areas.

Regions with subsoils made of granite, salt and clay are examined. According to experts, these have good properties for retaining radioactive radiation, are not very permeable to water and gas and can withstand high temperatures. “We will continue to narrow the areas until the end of 2027 until there are only a few location regions left in the running that we propose for exploration,” said Graffunder.

The Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management (BASE), which involves science and the public, is examining this proposal. The Bundestag ultimately makes the decision about the regions in question. The target date for the decision on a final repository is now 2050. This step was originally supposed to be completed by 2031.

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The search for a site has been politically charged since the end of the 1970s, when the then Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, Ernst Albrecht, announced that a nuclear repository would be built in Gorleben. This was followed by massive protests by residents of Wendland and the anti-nuclear movement. Many considered Gorleben to be unsuitable from the start, but in 2020 it was actually eliminated due to geological deficiencies.

The site selection law was intended to restart the search for a final repository in 2017. But that takes time: the search is carried out in a multi-stage, long-term and science-based process with public participation.

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The experts prefer “boring geology,” says Lisa Seidel from the BGE. In other words, formations “where as little as possible has happened in the last one million years and we can then assume that relatively little will happen there in the next one million years.” People want to keep their distance from possible gullies that were created by the melting of glaciers during the last ice age - also to ensure safety during possible future ice ages.

The thicker the rock formation in which a repository could be created, the better. This creates flexibility for precise warehouse planning. So-called host rocks for the final repository include underground granite and clay formations as well as salt domes. The future deposit should be at least 300 meters underground and surrounded by a layer of rock at least 100 meters thick as a barrier. The radioactive waste should be stored there as safely as possible for at least a million years.

The surroundings of a possible final repository, i.e. the question of whether it is in the country or in a city, is currently not an issue. The experts are currently only looking at the deep underground. However, whether there is the necessary space on the surface for buildings should also play a role in the later decision.

Five federal states are left out of the nuclear waste repository search - Dennis Pyzik, NDR tagesschau, Das Erste, October 27, 2026 • 3:00 p.m. What happens next? The newly published work statuses are not yet binding results because the sub-areas will not be narrowed down to location regions until the end of 2027. At the end of the first phase of the repository search, the BGE will then propose specific regions for above-ground exploration. After a thorough examination by scientists and the Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management, the legislature, i.e. the Bundestag, then decides where to proceed in the second phase.

The disused iron ore mine Schacht Konrad in Salzgitter has already been approved as a final repository. However, it is only intended for low- to medium-level radioactive waste and is scheduled to go into operation in the 2030s. 303,000 cubic meters of nuclear waste from nuclear power plants, research institutes, hospitals and industry are to be stored there.

The disused Asse salt mine near Wolfenbüttel was initially considered an “experimental final storage facility”. Between 1967 and 1978, the Federal Republic had around 126,000 barrels of low-level radioactive and around 1,300 barrels of medium-level radioactive nuclear waste and chemical waste stored there. Salt lye has been penetrating the mine for decades and it is considered unstable and at risk of collapse. The waste should therefore be brought back to the surface. Because the Konrad shaft does not have a permit for this, another final storage facility would have to be built for the Asse waste.

According to a study, the search for a location for a nuclear waste repository will be delayed until 2074. more

The underground camp in Morsleben near the former inner-German border in Saxony-Anhalt was the GDR's final storage facility. With reunification it became the property of the federal government. Around 37,000 cubic meters of low-level and medium-level radioactive nuclear waste are stored in the salt dome. In 1998, the Magdeburg Higher Administrative Court imposed a storage freeze. The final decommissioning process is currently underway. This repository is also considered at risk of collapse.

The Gorleben salt dome in the Lüchow-Dannenberg district has been examined since the late 1970s for its suitability as a final repository for highly radioactive nuclear waste. Opponents of nuclear power protested for just as long against the determination of what they considered to be an unsuitable location. Even well-known geologists doubted its suitability because there is no overburden and the salt dome is in contact with groundwater. In 2020, Gorleben was eliminated from the search process due to geological deficiencies. The shafts and tunnels of the exploration mine are currently being filled with salt.

The highly radioactive nuclear waste is currently stored in 16 interim storage facilities. Twelve of these camps are located at the sites of decommissioned nuclear power plants. Three others are so-called central interim storage facilities: Gorleben, Ahaus in North Rhine-Westphalia and Lubmin in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

In Jülich, North Rhine-Westphalia, waste from the operation of a research reactor is stored. The interim storage facilities were approved for a period of 40 years. Because the search for a final repository is dragging on, they have to be operated for much longer.