Topic: "Repository for Radioactive Waste - What to Store, Why, How and Where?"
Speaker: apl . Prof. Dr. Andreas Keller, visiting scientist with lectureship at the TU Ilmenau, Group of Biomedical Engineering
Time: Friday, 24.03.2023, 3:00 p.m.
Place: TU Ilmenau,Faraday Building, Weimarer Straße 32
Admission: 5 Euro
Worldwide 439 nuclear power plants are in operation, 52 are currently under construction. All of them produce highly radioactive materials as fission products and transuranics at the end of the fuel cycle - waste that has to be separated during power plant operation and during dismantling after a plant has been decommissioned and stored until its radioactivity has decayed sufficiently. All steps, from the transfer of spent nuclear fuel rods to their final disposal, must be done in such a way that radioactivity remains contained and nuclear radiation is shielded. The top priority is to ensure that the population as a whole, and especially those living in the vicinity of nuclear facilities and future repositories, are exposed to as little radioactivity as possible. Strict limits set by law are to ensure that their exposure remains harmless to health.
In his lecture at the TU Ilmenau Citizens' Campus on March 24, 3 p.m., Prof. Andreas Keller, a visiting scientist at the TU Ilmenau's Group of Biomedical Engineering, will describe what needs to be stored in repositories for radioactive waste, why, how and where. And he also reminds us that people in Germany have been arguing against the peaceful use of nuclear energy for decades. Protests against repositories have been going on for just as long. Under such conditions, the search for, construction and operation of a repository for thousands of years are highly problematic. In addition to physical-technical, geological, economic and social criteria, political and above all "alternative facts" will continue to determine the discussion for a long time to come. The opponents of nuclear energy were able to achieve an interim success in 2011: since the political decision to phase out nuclear energy, they feel confirmed in their path.
Contact
Dr. Uwe Geishendorf
Central Institute for Education
+49 3677 69-4675
buergercampus@tu-ilmenau.de
