Thoughts on the safety of final disposal of highly active substances in a rock salt formation

Automatic translation:For some time now, the question of reactor safety has no longer been the sole focus of public debate. Instead, there has been a clear shift in the nuclear controversy towards the risks of reprocessing and the final disposal of radioactive waste. The disposal of radioactive waste has perhaps come to the fore because people are used to thinking only in short time frames and are now forced to plan in longer time frames, over several generations ahead, in which the biosphere must be protected from the intrusion of these substances. Only if it is possible to close the fuel cycle over these periods, including disposal, is the use of nuclear technology for energy generation justifiable. Critics of nuclear energy doubt the isolation of radionuclides from the biosphere over these long periods of time and describe final disposal as a toxic legacy for future generations. However, it is not only nuclear energy that faces the problem of closing the cycle; large parts of other production sectors are also affected, e.g. the chemical industry with its partially non-degradable toxins. However, the risks here have not been noticed nearly as much until now; they have mostly been perceived as a result of civilization and therefore unavoidable by many. However, in the whole debate about nuclear energy, which is being conducted by the most diverse groups with the most diverse motives, the justified concern of many citizens for adequate protection of their living space must not be overlooked, especially as the limits of growth and the sometimes unbridled excesses of the industrial age make the associated environmental problems clear. History, right back to antiquity, is full of examples of how conscious and unconscious destructive human activity has destroyed the environment and interfered with the ecological system, from which nature has still not recovered. Just think of the great deforestation in the Mediterranean region, the decline of the great civilizations in the Indus basin and the current problem of the "Sahel zone". However, while processes used to be much slower in the past, today - due to the concentration of major technical potential dangers - ecological balances can be destroyed on a large scale within a very short space of time. Fortunately, today the improvement of the man-made and the preservation of the natural environment is once again gaining more importance than the longstanding, albeit understandable, material situation. In the following, an attempt will be made to clarify the extent to which the procedure proposed in the Federal Republic of Germany for the final disposal of radioactive waste in suitable salt domes can be regarded as a sufficient procedure for the long-term isolation of the radioactive source by various barriers against penetration into the biosphere, especially via the groundwater1 path, and can therefore be regarded as a further closure of the nuclear fuel cycle.