Technical advice to the county and the city of Osnabrück on the results of the Sub-areas Interim Report and on the method of the representative preliminary safety investigation in the site selection procedure for a repository

The Sub-areas Interim Report published by the BGE identifies sub-areas that were not excluded on the basis of the exclusion criteria, that meet the minimum requirements, and that were evaluated as favorable after application of the geoscientific weighing criteria and thus continue to be considered as potential repository sites in this first phase of the site selection procedure. The definition of size and boundaries of a sub-area is based on the distribution of stratigraphic units and host rocks relevant for repositories. Thus, several sub-areas can be located on top of each other. In the area of the district and the city of Osnabrück, a total of eight sub-areas were designated.

For these sub-areas in the area of the city and the district of Osnabrück it is evaluated whether the procedure of the BGE related to the criteria application and designation of the mentioned sub-areas is plausible and complies with the Site Selection Act.

In addition, potential issues arising from the method development of the representative preliminary safety investigations for the district and the city of Osnabrück will be addressed. In Phase I Step 2 of the German Site Selection Procedure, the BGE is developing a method for the representative preliminary safety investigations that will be used to implement initial safety assessments for a repository for high-level radioactive waste in the ongoing site selection process. Initial principles for this method have already been published, but the methodology is being continuously refined.