Bilateral Exchanges on Site Selection and Geological Disposal in the Asia-Pacific Region

In spring 2026, BGE TECHNOLOGY GmbH (BGE TEC) conducted a series of bilateral exchanges with partner organisations in East and South-East Asia. The visits were preceded in January 2026 by a technical dialogue with a Japanese delegation at the BGE liaison office in Berlin, in which representatives of the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan, Kansai Electric Power Company and the Radioactive Waste Management Funding and Research Centre (RWMC) of Japan participated (Read more). Together, these activities reflect the sustained contribution of BGE TEC to national radioactive waste management programmes across the East Asia and Asia-Pacific region.

In April 2026, Dr. Thilo von Berlepsch, Managing Director, and Dr. Toivo Wanne, Head of International Projects, attended the Pacific Basin Nuclear Conference (PBNC) 2026 and the associated INEX 2026 event at the Busan Exhibition and Convention Center in Busan. The conference brought together participants from across the international nuclear community to address developments in nuclear energy, including the expansion of small modular reactor (SMR) programmes in the Asia-Pacific region and the associated implications for radioactive waste management across the full facility lifecycle.

Following the conference, both colleagues travelled to Daejeon for a bilateral exchange meeting at the offices of the Korea Radioactive Waste Agency (KORAD). KORAD is currently responsible for the site selection process for the Republic of Korea's high-level radioactive waste deep geological repository. The discussions examined the methodological similarities and differences between the Korean and German approaches to site selection, as well as relevant international experience. The exchange is part of an ongoing dialogue on the technical and procedural foundations of disposal concept development, performance assessment, and repository siting in different national and geological contexts.

In Tokyo bilateral meetings were held with two longstanding partner organisations. The meeting with RWMC addressed current research activities supporting Japan's national roadmap for geological disposal, with a focus on high-level and low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste management. BGE TEC and RWMC have maintained a formal cooperation agreement for more than twenty years, which was renewed most recently in 2023, and the Tokyo meeting provided an opportunity to exchange recent findings and discuss the further development of common research activities.

The meeting with the Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan (NUMO) addressed the future direction of cooperation between the two organisations. Discussions focused on the currently ongoing high-level radioactive waste repository site selection process in Japan, areas of shared technical interest, and the identification of topics for continued collaboration in the coming years.

Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has a central role in policy development related to the geological disposal of high-level radioactive waste.  The meeting with METI addressed international cooperation in support of Japan's ongoing site selection programme.

The visit concluded in Taipei, where Dr. Wanne and Dr. von Berlepsch met with representatives of Taiwan Power Company, Sinotech Engineering Consultants, the National Atomic Research Institute and the Ministry of Economic Affairs of Taiwan. The discussions addressed the status of the Taiwanese high-level radioactive waste deep geological repository programme, including the ongoing safety case review by the Taiwanese regulatory authority. The German site selection procedure and relevant international experience in deep geological repository development were presented as reference points for comparison and discussion.

The bilateral engagements described above are consistent with BGE TEC's long-standing commitment to international cooperation in radioactive waste management. The technical challenges associated with the geological disposal of radioactive waste are common across national programmes, and systematic exchange between organisations at different stages of programme development contributes to the shared body of knowledge on which safe disposal solutions depend. The visits to Australia conducted in February 2026 by BGE TEC colleagues formed a parallel strand of this wider Asia-Pacific engagement, details of which are reported separately (Read more).