Disposal - where?

The question of where to dispose of radioactive waste will be answered conclusively in the coming years. Repository sites are selected in accordance with the conceptual part of the Sectoral Plan for Deep Geological Repositories, which was approved by the Federal Council in April 2008. The site selection process, which is divided into three stages, is under the lead of the Federal Office of Energy.

In the first stage of the Sectoral Plan process, Nagra proposed geological siting regions where, from a scientific and technical perspective, safe geological repositories could be constructed. The federal safety authorities and other expert bodies have reviewed and approved these proposals. In November 2011, the Federal Council decided to incorporate the proposed siting regions into the Sectoral Plan process.

In the coming years, the details of the repository projects will be concretised and the potential sites compared with one another. The decisive criterion is always safety.

The process will end in around ten years with the submission of general licence applications for the high-level waste repository and the low- and intermediate-level waste repository.