Sweden builds 100,000-year storage site for spent nuclear material
Sweden began building a final nuclear fuel storage facility on Wednesday. It is only the second site of its kind in the world where highly radioactive wastes will be stored for 100 years.
Since the commercialization of nuclear reactors in the 1950s, the question of how to safely store radioactive waste has plagued the industry.
Finland is the only nation that has a permanent site in its final stages of construction.
Romina Pourmokhtari, Environment Minister, said: "It's hard to overstate the importance of the fact that construction of the final repository has begun for Sweden and the climate change transition." They said it wouldn't, but it works."
World Nuclear Association estimates that there are approximately 300,000 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel in the world. The majority of the spent fuel is stored in cooling pools near the reactors where it was produced.
In addition to the already produced spent fuel, many countries in Europe and throughout the world plan to build new nuclear reactors to generate electricity for the transition from fossil fuels.
Forsmark, located about 150 km north of Stockholm, on Sweden's East Coast, will have 60 km of tunnels, buried in bedrock 1.9 billion years old, at a depth of 500 meters.
The final resting place for 12,000 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel will be a 5 metre-long, corrosion resistant copper capsule that will be packed with clay and buried.
According to the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company, the facility will receive its first wastes in the late 2030s. However, it will not be complete until 2080. At that time the tunnels will have been backfilled and sealed.
However, the process could still be delayed. MKG, an NGO working in Sweden on nuclear wastes, filed a court appeal calling for more safety checks.
The Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden said that research showed the copper capsules can corrode, releasing radioactive elements to the groundwater.
Linda Birkedal said, "We can wait 10 years before making a decision. This is something we need to be sure will last for 100,000 years."
SKB stated that the nuclear industry will pay for around 12 billion crowns ($1.08 billion), which is approximately 12 billion crowns.
The facility will be able to accommodate all of the nuclear waste generated by Sweden.
It will not, however, hold fuel for future reactors. Sweden plans to build ten more reactors before 2045.
(source: Reuters)