[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

IAEA Article: The Promise of Underground Geological Repositories



I received this through another list server, and

thought I would pass it along.  The original article

with other links is at

http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Features/GrimselLab/repositories20040123.html



--------------------------

The Promise of Underground Geological Repositories



Centres of Excellence Help Build Confidence Worldwide

Staff Report

23 January 2004

 

Each year the world.s 441 nuclear power reactors

create enough spent fuel to fill a football field.

That.s about 10 500 tonnes of heavy metal. This waste

is thermally hot and can stay radioactive for

thousands of years. Because it is solid and does not

readily dissolve in water, the fuel wastes are

typically stored in water pools on site at the nuclear

reactors for many years.



But permanent disposal places are needed. Scientists

warn that the ongoing storage of spent fuel is not

sustainable for the long years needed for the waste to

decay and lose its radioactivity. Right now only one

permanent disposal facility exists . in New Mexico

where long-lived radioactive waste from United States

military programmes is carefully packaged and cocooned

in tunnels deep underground, in what is called a

geological repository.



Containing the Heavy Metal



Global scientific consensus is that disposal in these

deep underground repositories is the best and safest

option available to permanently separate this waste

from humans and the environment. This consensus is

backed by several decades of research and outlined in

a position paper by international experts that the

IAEA published on The Long Term Storage of Radioactive

Waste Safety and Sustainability [pdf].



Over the last thirty years many IAEA Member States

have developed the methodologies for the disposal of

radioactive wastes in underground "geological"

repositories. Underground Research Laboratories have

been set up and used for this purpose.



Total Stored Spent Fuel

(1 January 2003)

 

Region Amount

(Tonnes of Heavy Metal) 

West Europe -- 36 100 

East Europe -- 27 700 

America ------ 83 300 

Asia & Africa  23 900 

World ------- 171 000 





Source: IAEA Overview of Global Spent Fuel Storage



In 2002 a group of Member States offered the use of

their underground rock labs and some associated

surface facilities to help build confidence and

capacity throughout the world in geological disposal

of radioactive wastes.



This group, collectively known as the IAEA Network of

Centres of Excellence (COE) in Training and

Demonstrations of Waste Disposal Technologies,

includes the following:





Canada with the Underground Research Laboratory of

Lac-du-Bonnet, Manitoba; 

Switzerland with the Mont-Terri Underground Research

Laboratory; 

Wales, United Kingdom, with the Geo-Environmental

Research Centre in Cardiff; and 

United States of America, with the WIPP facility near

Carlsbad, New Mexico, the Yucca Mountain Project in

Nevada, and Lawrence Berkeley National laboratory in

California. 



The in-situ laboratories in this network also provide

the opportunity for hands-on training in waste

disposal technologies for countries which do not have

their own underground research facilities.



More countries, such as Sweden with its Aspo

Laboratory, are expected to join the IAEA network when

they consider that they can fully commit themselves to

this international project.







=====

+++++++++++++++++++

"The care of human life and happiness . . . is the first and only legitimate object of good government."

Thomas Jefferson



-- John

John Jacobus, MS

Certified Health Physicist

e-mail:  crispy_bird@yahoo.com



__________________________________

Do you Yahoo!?

Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want.

http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools

************************************************************************

You are currently subscribed to the Radsafe mailing list. To

unsubscribe, send an e-mail to Majordomo@list.vanderbilt.edu  Put the

text "unsubscribe radsafe" (no quote marks) in the body of the e-mail,

with no subject line. You can view the Radsafe archives at

http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/