A guest article by Harald Jenny

In a circular letter to the members of the «Independent Monitoring Body for the Swiss Deep Geological Repository USBT», Harald Jenny points out a major gap in the current deep geological repository project: there is no Plan B. If the «Nördlich Lägern» project does not work out, there is only one way out: «Then we will somehow make it work.»

To the article:

The biggest weakness in the Swiss deep geological repository project: no plan B.

At the OPALINUS EXCHANGE on May 7, 2024, the participants addressed the question of what the public can expect on November 19, 2024, when Nagra submits the general license application. The sobering answer is: Not much. This is because Nagra will only publish the extensive documentation submitted on this date a few months later, after it has passed a completeness check by the federal authorities. So that nothing goes wrong. During the discussion, it became clear that Nagra has no plan B. 19.11.2024 is another waypoint on a one-way street where there are no more turn-offs or opportunities to turn back. What if something doesn’t work out? Then you somehow make it work. Plan B? Not a chance.

The Nagra brochure 500m+, issue 2/2023, describes the mood in the «Nördlich Lägern» region as follows:

«The excitement (about the deep geological repository coming to NL) has now given way to pragmatism. Most residents have quickly turned their attention to the future. To what lies ahead for the region.»

«The municipal presidents of the three most affected municipalities … have taken matters into their own hands, organized information events and made plans. And looked for answers to the big question: How can the region make the best of this situation?»

Both statements imply that the decision for the «Nördlich Lägern» region has already been made. As if ENSI has already approved the project, the Federal Council has already made its decision, Parliament has validated it and the referendum either did not take place or was rejected.

We know from psychology what the effect of such one-sided, suggestive reporting is: it obscures the alternatives. They make us believe that there is only one solution, in this case that of the nuclear lobby, and that a discussion about other options is pointless.

The USBT cannot endorse this kind of appropriation. Every important project involves working with options and alternatives. And not just whether the facades should be painted green or blue, or whether a ramp should be built instead of a shaft, but fundamentally whether it is right to build the deep geological repository in the densely populated Zurich region, with a surface facility directly in the approach corridor to the airport. Whether it makes sense to sacrifice intensively used, prime agricultural land. Whether it is responsible to build so close to the Rhine and in the catchment area of thermal springs where warm water flows around the repository.

Nagra is deaf to such questions. Mentally, it has long been on a one-way street with no side branches, and the road is so narrow that it is no longer possible to turn around. Her mindset is: We have already invested so much time, money and energy in this project; let’s finish it now.

Anyone who does not subscribe to this mindset has a thankless but important task in the deep geological repository project. Nagra’s standard answer is: «We are examining everything, and there is an answer to this question.» If the answer is not yet available, it will certainly come, and in such a way that the deep geological repository project will of course continue to make progress in its one-way street. Nobody at Nagra is really reckoning with the possibility of obstacles arising in this one-way street that would force a reversal. They are so sure of their cause and so fixated on the chosen solution that they no longer have an eye or ear for alternatives. A possible referendum is not seen as a welcome platform for discussion, but as a project risk. Alarm bells should be ringing now at the latest.

The biggest weakness in the Swiss deep geological repository project is the complete lack of a Plan B. Nagra’s CEO has publicly acknowledged this lack. But no project of this magnitude can do without a proper risk analysis, and no risk analysis is complete without alternative options. Either Nagra has not completed its risk analysis in this respect, in which case it would be irresponsible. Or it has developed the alternative options but is not communicating them because they could jeopardize Plan A. It is inconceivable that the Federal Council and Parliament would wave through a project with a lifespan of 1 million years in just a few years without having any clarity about alternatives. And there are alternatives.

Firstly, the Nuclear Energy Act already provides for alternatives for fulfilling waste disposal requirements. Article 31 states:

«The disposal obligation is fulfilled if

a. the waste has been transferred to a deep geological repository and the financial resources for the monitoring phase and any closure have been secured;

b. the waste has been transferred to a foreign disposal facility.»

So the KEG is already thinking in variants. Naturally, Nagra does not like paragraph b. and immediately counters that, in principle, disposal should take place in Switzerland. But what does inland mean in a project with a duration of 1 million years? If you only consider the shift in national borders over the past 3’000 years (i.e. 3 ‰ of the lifetime), it becomes obvious that the strict limitation to the current territory of Switzerland makes no sense if there are better solutions outside our current borders [1].

Secondly, the current Nagra disposal proposal fails to take any account of technical developments. The high-quality, high-purity uranium rods are buried underground on such a massive scale that it would make no sense to consider retrieving them once new technologies are ready for series production, if only for economic reasons.

The theoretical possibility of the much-vaunted retrieval is a fig leaf and not an alternative in the sense required here.

Thirdly, Nagra has ruled out many intelligent interim solutions. Not invented here, one seems to hear. It is indisputably not a good idea to leave the waste where it is today – above ground, protected only by castor containers and guarded around the clock. However, thinking about alternatives means being open to new ideas and evaluating them in depth, which is tantamount to Plan A. Why not a deep interim storage facility? Simpler, less expensive, but a valid interim solution until we know what to do with the waste? Or a cavern interim storage facility in one of the decommissioned military airfields in the Alps? And so on.

Nagra and the responsible federal office only shake their heads when such proposals are made. This is understandable. After all, the waste producers want to bury the material as quickly as possible so that they can get rid of their financial obligations and hand the problem over to the federal government. Officially, they argue that it is unethical to leave their own waste for future generations. But is it more ethical to hand over a contaminated site to future generations, buried at a depth of 800 meters, where it is prohibitively expensive to recover and reuse uranium as a raw material? Where, after 10’000 years, radioactive and chemically toxic particles slowly begin to diffuse to the surface and into the deep groundwater?

In a project that entails obligations for 40’000 generations, it is irresponsible not to evaluate plans B, C and D in connection with the general license application. Just because so much time, money and energy has already been invested in solution A, nobody will forgive us in a few centuries’ time for having concentrated with blinkers on the implementation of one fixed idea without examining the clearly existing alternatives with the same thoroughness.

The OPALINUS-EXCHANGE [2] of 7 May 2024 made it clear that it is essential to develop alternatives with the same attention to detail in connection with the general license application. Nagra is making it too easy for itself if it wants to delegate this task to politicians. As the representative of the waste producers, it is its very own mission to develop and present alternatives. If it fails to do so, the boomerang will come back at some point, even if it is from future generations. Preventing this should actually be in Nagra’s own best interests.

[1] see for instance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0zTN1n_VA&pp=ygUgTGFuZGVzZ3JlbnplbiBFdXJvcGEgMjAwMCBKYWhyZW4%3D

[2] «OPALINUS-EXCHANGE» is an information and discussion platform of the «Independent Support Body for Deep Geological Repository USBT», coordinated by Harald Jenny (www.sicoa.ch/USBT).