Finding a repository in Germany: knowledge, attitudes and needs; Repeated representative survey (EWident) Continuation

The Site Selection Act (StandAG) regulates the individual procedural steps for an open-ended, science-based, transparent search and selection of a site for the safe final disposal of high-level radioactive waste. The aim is to determine the location for a repository with the best possible safety for a period of one million years. The result should be supported by a broad social consensus and tolerated by those affected.

The Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management (BASE) oversees the search for this site for a repository for high-level radioactive waste and is responsible for public participation. It creates the basis and boundary conditions for how citizens are involved in the search for a location as "co-creators of the process" (StandAG § 5 para. 1). Since site selection is designed as a self-questioning and learning process, the StandAG sets far-reaching minimum legal requirements for participation on the one hand, which are further developed in the course of the procedure on the other.

In the course of the site selection process (StandAV), it is of central importance for BASE to survey the attitudes and needs of the population. Regularly repeated, representative population surveys are intended to provide a sound understanding of the prevailing attitudes, opinions and levels of knowledge regarding the search for a repository. This also includes institutional aspects (knowledge of responsibilities and division of tasks, trust in the implementing institutions, etc.) as well as the questions of how people inform themselves about the process of finding a repository and what expectations exist with regard to public participation.

To this end, BASE commissioned the EWident research project (Repository Search in Germany: Knowledge, Attitudes and Needs; repeated representative survey, FKZ 4719F00201) as early as 2020, within the framework of which representative surveys were carried out over two periods.

The repeated implementation of the survey should make it possible to examine the extent to which there are changes in the course of the site selection process with regard to the above-mentioned aspects.

The task of the advertised research project is to develop a concept for the continuation of this long-term, representative survey, to conduct two surveys (probably fourth quarter of 2023 and fourth quarter of 2025) and to evaluate the collected data.