Safety policy for siting nuclear power stations in the Federal Republic of Germany

Sites for nuclear power stations must meet various requirements related, e.g., to economy, environmental protection, nuclear safety or regional planning. So far, new sites in the Federal Republic of Germany have been selected by the utilities and have to be licensed by different responsible authorities at federal, Laender or lower level. There are serious problems in selecting suitable sites in such a densely populated country. The Federal Government's energy programme, however, requires up to thirty new sites for large nuclear power plants within the next five or six years. To avoid delays in licensing procedure and at the same time to select optimal sites from limited possibilities, a long-term policy of making provisions for sites is under development. This will include (a) an optimal site preselection process which takes relevant aspects of sites into account, and (b) a process to guarantee a later license as far as possible. It is intended to develop an abundant stock of sites from which sites can be chosen as necessary, combined with a standardized nuclear power station concept. This will allow a construction permit to be issued much sooner than at present. As a tool for facilitating site planning, safety-orientated site evaluation data are under development. It is not intended to establish any stringent licensing criteria but to offer site evaluation data which will indicate for each safety-related site property the trend which site planning should follow. This will be achieved by three categories of data for judging individual site properties. Due to the far-reaching actual or potential influence of a nuclear power station, certain information and co-ordination mechanisms are needed in order to harmonize site planning in frontier regions. (author)