World's First Permanent Nuclear Waste Site Wins License in Finland
Mexico’s Richest Man Sells $1.15 Billion in Oil Stocks Haley Zaremba is an energy journalist and researcher with more than a decade of professional experience covering global energy systems, land and natural resources, and… The world’s very first permanent nuclear waste repository just got one major step closer to opening its doors for business.
Posiva, the waste management company responsible for the project located in Eurajoki, Finland, just received its operating license for the Onkalo facility from the country’s government.
The solution that we have, it's the missing point for sustainable use of nuclear energy," said Pasi Tuohimaa, the communications manager for Posiva.
The site will encapsulate radioactive spent nuclear fuel in canisters designed to safely store the hazardous materials for 100,000 years, and then store them 400 meters (1,312 feet) under the ground within nearly 2-billion-year-old crystalline bedrock.
After 100,000 years, the radioactivity of the uranium within will be essentially neutralized due to natural exponential decay.
“This is a great and historic day for both Posiva and Finland,” the company’s Chief Executive Officer Ilkka Poikolainen said in a recent statement.
22 years after construction began, the finish line is finally within view – although an exact opening date still has not been determined.
“Before final disposal begins, Posiva will finalise the commissioning stage, carrying out the necessary tests and inspections which STUK [the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority] also needs to verify and approve,” Poikolainen went on to say.
The newly permitted Onkalo site, named after the Finnish word for ‘cave’, will be composed of two parts: the aboveground encapsulation plant and the belowground repository, which will be able to store up to 6,500 tonnes (7,200 tons) of spent nuclear fuel.
“To ensure safety, the facility uses a multi-barrier defense system to isolate the waste permanently.
Spent fuel rods from the Olkiluoto and Loviisa plants are sealed inside thick, corrosion-resistant copper canisters,” describes arecent reportfrom Interesting Engineering.
Once these canisters are lowered hundreds of meters into shafts drilled deep into the bedrock, they will be surrounded with expanding bentonite clay “to absorb moisture and block movement.” “Finally,” Interesting Engineering reports, “massive steel-reinforced concrete plugs seal the subterranean tunnels shut.” When the site is fully up and running, it will inter an anticipated maximum of 60 canisters per year until it reaches its maximum capacity of approximately 3,300 canisters.
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