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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
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