{"id":75151,"date":"2026-03-02T22:55:02","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T20:55:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/visualjournalism.de\/?post_type=magazin&p=75151"},"modified":"2026-10-09T11:53:32","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T09:53:32","slug":"nuclear-waste-in-asse-ii","status":"publish","type":"magazin","link":"https:\/\/visualjournalism.de\/en\/magazine\/collecting\/nuclear-waste-in-asse-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Nuclear waste in Asse II: what remains"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
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\r\n Nuclear waste in Asse II: what remains <\/h2>\r\n\r\n
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Nuclear waste lies deep inside Asse II \u2013 dumped carelessly, barely secured. Now water is getting in. A region has been waiting decades for answers, and the country for a permanent repository.
\nBy Clara Sch\u00f6ttke<\/a> (text), Walter Lehmann<\/a> (photos)<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/div>\r\n \r\n

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When Angela Merkel announced<\/strong> Germany’s nuclear phase-out<\/a> in March 2011, after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, it marked not only the beginning of the end of nuclear power in Germany but also a new phase in dealing with what is left behind: nuclear waste. The question of where a permanently safe repository for high-level radioactive waste should be built became more pressing than ever. Yet while political consensus on the phase-out was reached quickly, the search for a repository is still dragging on today \u2013 and will probably continue well beyond 2050, possibly until 2074<\/a>.

A stark reminder of past failures is the Asse II mine in Lower Saxony: an old salt mine in which around 126,000 drums of low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste were stored between 1967 and 1978 \u2013 without adequate documentation and without a modern safety concept. Decades later, water is seeping in, and retrieving the waste has become a mammoth task, both technologically and politically. To this day, the Asse stands for everything that can go wrong in disposing of the nuclear legacy \u2013 and it shapes both public perception and the new search for a repository.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The Site Selection Act of 2017<\/u> <\/a>was supposed to make everything better: transparent, science-based and open to public participation. Gorleben was ruled out as a repository site, and more than 90 possible regions were initially identified. But the reality is sobering: the original deadline \u2013 a decision on the site by 2031 \u2013 has long since become untenable. New forecasts assume a decision in 2046 at the earliest, and some studies even suggest the repository will not be completed until the 2070s.

The search for a safe repository has thus become the task of a century. And it shows that the nuclear phase-out is far from over \u2013 it has only just begun.<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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The miners’ greeting \u2018Gl\u00fcck auf\u2019<\/strong> is hardly ever heard in the former mine these days. For years, Asse II has been an interim store for nuclear waste.<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Deep underground<\/strong> lie 47,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste to this day. The drums were simply tipped into a pit with an excavator. January 2025, access road to the BGE site and entrance to Asse II<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Water in the mountain \u2013 the heart of the problem<\/h2>\n\n \n <\/div>\n\n \n\n\n\n\n

Ever since the waste was put there between 1967 and 1978, it has been clear that salt domes like the Asse are not completely \u2018dry\u2019. From 1988, the first points where salty water was flowing in were documented \u2013 once dismissed as \u2018insignificant\u2019, these inflows have become key risk factors. Around 570 spots are damp. If the mine were to flood, it would no longer be possible to work there safely. Twelve cubic metres of water are collected every day \u2013 about 50 bathtubs’ worth. Fifteen litres of that water a day come into contact with the radioactive material and are contaminated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For<\/b> years, water was pumped<\/strong> into the chambers without a radiation protection licence. And when it came out that it might be getting into the groundwater, of course there was a real uproar.<\/p>\n <\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n

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