Former iron-ore mine will be country’s first LLW and ILW facility
BGE, Germany’s radioactive waste management organisation, has awarded a contract to Hanover-based Ed. Züblin AG for the construction of major earthquake-proof facilities at the planned Konrad radwaste disposal facility at Salzgitter, Lower Saxony, northwest Germany.
Construction is scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2023 with completion scheduled for 2025.
The main facility under the contract is a building where packages of low-level waste (LLW) and intermediate-level waste (ILW) will be radiologically checked, lifted off trucks and rail carriages and prepared for transport underground through the Konrad 2 storage shaft.
Construction is scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2023 with completion scheduled for 2025.
The main facility under the contract is a building where packages of low-level waste (LLW) and intermediate-level waste (ILW) will be radiologically checked, lifted off trucks and rail carriages and prepared for transport underground through the Konrad 2 storage shaft.
A separate “buffer hall”, also part of the contract, will be connected to the reloading hall and will accommodate radwaste containers at short notice in the event of unplanned stoppages of the shaft hoisting system.
Konrad – a former iron-ore mine – will be Germany’s first repository for LLW and ILW.
The mine closed for economic reasons in 1976 and investigations began the same year to determine whether the mine was suitable for use as a repository for low-level and intermediate-level radioactive waste.
In September 2020, Germany formally launched its search for a permanent high-level nuclear waste repository site, publishing a 444-page list of locations to be assessed by 2031 with operation of the facility from 2050.
