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Photo: Sebastian Kahnert / dpa
The German repository for highly radioactive nuclear waste will not be built in Gorleben.
The Lower Saxony salt dome in the region is not on the list of the Federal Association for Final Storage (BGE), which published its interim report on Monday morning, due to instability.
"The Gorleben salt dome will therefore not be considered in the further work of the BGE on the proposals on the siting regions," says the interim report.
Bavaria, on the other hand, comes up for discussion, where the granite rock is basically mentioned as being suitable for an underground nuclear waste storage facility.
Based on the geological conditions alone, the BGE has listed around 90 possible locations in clay, salt and crystalline geological information such as granite.
Other criteria such as settlement or development did not play a role in this first step.
In further phases, the selection will be further restricted in the next few years, so that a decision on a location should be made by 2031.
It should then go into operation in 2050.
In addition to Bavaria, the BGE has other salt domes in Lower Saxony as well as areas in Baden-Württemberg and large parts of eastern Germany on the list.
The Saarland, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and parts of the Ruhr area, however, are not found on it.
The Ruhr area is ruled out because of the numerous old mines that make the area geologically unsafe.
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hen / dpa