"Spiegel" Article on AVR Fuel Elements

Jülich, 2 April 2011 – With respect to an article in the news magazine "Spiegel" on Saturday, 2 April 2011 alleging that the Government of the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia had lost fuel elements from Jülich, Forschungszentrum Jülich hereby issues the following statement.

According to information from AVR GmbH, a total of 290,705 fuel spheres were used in the high-temperature reactor which it operated from 1967 to 1988. Forschungszentrum Jülich currently has 152 Castor containers in interim storage containing 288,161 intact spent fuel spheres as well as 124 absorber spheres from the neighbouring high-temperature reactor operated by Arbeitsgemeinschaft Versuchsreaktor GmbH (AVR). In addition, AVR GmbH handed over sphere fragments from the high-temperature reactor to Forschungszentrum Jülich. These fragments were encased in cement for safe storage and will be stored at Jülich as intermediate level waste until the Konrad repository is ready to accept such waste. Furthermore, during the development and operation of the AVR high-temperature reactor, numerous spent fuel spheres were examined for a variety of research purposes. They were also encased in cement as sphere fragments at Forschungszentrum Jülich, where they are being kept in interim storage as intermediate level waste until they can be released to the Konrad repository. This has been documented, registered with the regulatory bodies, and is regularly monitored by EURATOM. According to AVR GmbH, the reactor vessel of the decommissioned reactor also contains a small number of sphere fragments.

The government of NRW is aware of all of these circumstances.

Press contact

Dr. Anne Rother
Tel: +49 2461 61-4661
a.rother@fz-juelich.de