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BGR Report 2023 – Focus on Raw Materials

Deutsche Version

Cover BGR Report 2023

President’s foreword

Dear readers,

BGR advises and informs the Federal Government and German businesses on all issues relating to geosciences and raw materials procurement. One of its principal responsibilities is to enhance its technical competence for ensuring the country‘s supply of mineral raw materials and energy. The cover story of this BGR Report (pages 6–11) presents a comprehensive account of BGR's raw materials expertise. It outlines the methods employed to increase this expertise and describes the activities and technologies used by BGR to provide support in political and economic decision-making processes.

Germany is heavily dependent on imports of metallic raw materials. In order to ensure the supply of raw materials in the future, it is critically important to expand the circular economy with an even greater focus on recycling. On pages 12 and 13, you can read how the German Mineral Resources Agency (DERA) at BGR has improved its advisory capability with the publication of the first German ‘Recycling Atlas for Metal Production’.

Geothermal energy also has a great potential as a source of renewable energy in Germany. BGR supports the German Government‘s geothermal energy campaign by evaluating promising projects and by developing technological methods to monitor and mitigate seismic risks related to geothermal energy, as explained in our contribution on pages 16 and 17.

Large forest areas are threatened by climate change. In many places, attempts are being made to counteract this development by reforesting with more climate-resilient plants. However, the choice of tree species influences the amount of precipitation that seeps into the ground, and thus the future groundwater recharge. The ways in which this can affect the water supply is described in the article about a BGR research project on page 25.

For the safe underground storage of radioactive waste, it is crucially important to acquire detailed information about the microscopically small pores in a host rock, as they have a significant impact on its material properties. Until now, the detection of these pores was very time-consuming. In their contribution on page 28, a BGR team describes how the application of ‘artificial intelligence’ successfully simplified this procedure and, at the same time, improved the analytical method.

The former Managing Director of the BGE (Bundesgesellschaft für Endlagerung – Federal Company for Radioactive Waste Disposal), Steffen Kanitz, explains in an interview on pages 38 and 39 why BGR‘s expertise is so important in the search for a suitable repository site for high-level radioactive waste in Germany.

BGR celebrated the 30th anniversary of Technical Cooperation with Mongolia. The article on pages 32 and 33 shows how the successful geoscientific partnership developed and describes BGR's support for this resource-rich Central Asian country.

I hope you enjoy reading this issue!

Prof. Dr. Ralph Watzel,
President of the Federal Institute for
Geosciences and Natural Resources
BGR

The BGR Report is free of charge and can be obtained from: Vertrieb@bgr.de

Download:

BGR Report of the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources 2023 (PDF, 16 MB)


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Sina Vollbrecht
Phone: +49-(0)511-643-2074

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