With the establishment of the “Arbeitskreis Auswahlverfahren Endlagerstandorte” (AkEnd) – the Committee on a Site Selection Procedure for Repository Sites, in the following referred as to as the “committee” - the Federal Minister for the Environment set up a discussion forum on radioactive waste disposal, which has been called for by the public for quite some time.

The Department of Energy (DOE) is studying a site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, for a permanent underground repository for highly radioactive spent fuel from nuclear reactors, but delays have pushed back the facility’s opening date to 2010 at the earliest. In the meantime, spent fuel is accumulating at U.S. nuclear plant sites at the rate of about 2,000 metric tons per year. Major options for managing those growing quantities of nuclear spent fuel include continued storage at reactors, construction of a DOE interim storage site near Yucca Mountain, and licensing of private storage facilities.