Medicine and science have to wait for the restart of the research reactor FRM II near Munich. The reactor still has a technical problem.
Garching (dpa / lby) - The Garching research reactor FRM II should not run again until the year after next. The resumption of operations is planned for 2024, according to a request from the Green State Parliament Member Köhler to the Ministry of Science. This means that the reactor, which was shut down in March 2020 due to the pandemic, is expected to be idle for almost four years. The reason for the delay in the restart that has already been approved by the Ministry of the Environment is a missing spare part. In autumn 2021, a restart for 2022 was announced.
"The Garching research reactor has been idle for 1,000 days and its future is still in the stars," criticized Köhler. It apparently took months to even find a contractor to procure the spare part. "The order has now been placed, but the manufacture and installation will take at least the whole of next year."
The environmental committee chairman Rosi Steinberger (Greens) spoke of a blatant loss of know-how. The long standstill is not only due to defective parts, but also to the fact that the knowledge about the production of such components was probably not well documented. "There may be more problems to be expected in the future."
The Green MP Markus Büchler demanded: "It would be appropriate for the Technical University of Munich to present the situation at the reactor relentlessly and unembellished." He listed the most recent problems: In March 2020, a defect exceeded the annual limit for radioactive C14 within a few weeks. Then a defect in the cold spring prevented operation - and at the beginning of the year a leak was discovered in the area of the reactor pool. The spare part is necessary for this.
With the FRM II, it was said that the spare part was unique. Also because several actors are involved, the production takes time. In order to be able to react more quickly in the future, a center for nuclear engineering issues was founded at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) as the operator. Science and medicine urgently awaited the restart of the important neutron source. Nuclear medicine specialists reported shortages of radiopharmaceuticals.
TUM only announced in November that the FRM II can also be operated with low-enriched uranium. This is an important step for the company in the future. Because of the highly enriched uranium as a fuel, the FRM II has been criticized for years. Nuclear opponents speak of the 93 percent enriched uranium as weapons-grade material and complained to the Bavarian Administrative Court against the operation. Material enriched to at least 50 percent must be used. The operating license from 2003 required conversion to a lower-enriched fuel as soon as possible.
