Facts
The Federal Supreme Court had to decide on the appeal of BKW FMB Energie AG (BKW) against the time limitation of the operating permit for the Mühleberg Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) until June 28, 2013.
The Mühleberg NPP was put into operation in 1972 and had been operating with time-limited operating permits. Most recently, the Federal Council extended the operating permit until December 31, 2012 on October 28, 1998. On January 25, 2005, BKW submitted a request to revoke this time limitation, whereupon the Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications (DETEC) rejected BKW's main request on June 13, 2006. BKW appealed against this decision, which was partially upheld by the Federal Administrative Court.
Subsequently, DETEC took up BKW's request, published it and made the request documents publicly available. During the public display period, around 1,900 objections were filed, including one from X. and numerous other parties involved. By decision of December 17, 2009, DETEC revoked the time limitation of the operating permit for the Mühleberg NPP.
X. and other parties involved appealed against this decision to the Federal Administrative Court. The court found that significant safety aspects had not been clarified and limited the operating permit until June 28, 2013. BKW and DETEC then appealed to the Federal Supreme Court.
Considerations
The Federal Supreme Court upholds the appeals.
It states that a time limitation of the operating permit is only justified if there is a justified reason to assume that at the time of the expiration of the time limit, the safety requirements will no longer be met and their maintenance cannot be ensured even with the means of ongoing supervision and retrofitting measures. The fact that open questions are discussed,…