|
In 1972, another attempt was made. On behalf of the Federal Ministry of Research and Technology a search was started all over Germany for a site for a nuclear waste management centre (Nukleares Entsorgungszentrum, NEZ) with reprocessing and disposal at one site. Size and depth of the salt domes are the essential selection criteria for disposal. In Lower Saxony three sites – Wahn, Weesen-Lutterloh, and Lichtenhorst – were proposed. A comparative investigation of all three sites was intended, which, in my opinion, is a correct scientific approach with the problems to be solved being so complex. The first comprehensive investigations were carried out of the Wahn salt dome at the Börger site. An agriculturist who felt she had been deceived regarding the background of the drillings, triggered an avalanche with her protest. The protests at the sites for the NEZ became the focal points of the anti-NPP movement. The sore point of the federal government’s waste management policy and thus a weak point in the use of nuclear energy was that in the nuclear power plant licences granted prior to 1980, the importance of an energy supply independent of oil deliveries was pointed out in the justification, but that the proof of precautionary measures to dispose of radioactive waste was no licensing requirement for the operation of nuclear power plants. Due to the citizens´ protests concerning the sites selected by the federal government, the Federal Minister of Research, Hans Matthöfer (SPD) and the Lower Saxonian Minister of Finance and Economics, Walter Leisler Kiep (CDU) agreed on August 10, 1976, to stop the exploration work. However, this was done in the light of an agreement given by State Minister Alfred Kubel (SPD) in 1975 that a nuclear waste management centre would be implemented in Lower Saxony.
|