Storage site for nuclear waste begins construction in Sweden
Sweden has begun construction of a storage facility for spent nuclear fuel. This would be only the second of its type in the world, allowing for highly radioactive waste to remain for 100,000 years. One of the biggest challenges that the nuclear industry has faced since the 1950s is how to store deadly radioactive waste until it is safe.
Finland is the only other country close to completion of a permanent storage site.
“It is hard to exaggerate the significance for Sweden and for the climate transition of the fact that the building of the final repository is under way,” Environment Minister Romina Pourmokhtari said. “They said it wouldn’t work, but it does.”
There are around 300,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel around the world that needs to be disposed of. Most of it is kept in cooling ponds close to the reactors that produced them. Aside from the spent fuel that is already produced, several countries in Europe and elsewhere are planning to build new reactors to help them in the transition from fossil fuels.
Sweden’s Forsmark final repository is 150 kilometres north of Stockholm, along the east coast. It consists of 60km of tunnels buried 500 metres underground in bedrock dated back to 1.9 billion years ago. It will houses 12,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel in 5 metre long, corrosion-resistant copper capsules which will be packed in clay and buried.
The first waste is set to be taken to the facility at the end of the next decade. But it will not be until around 2080 when it will be completed, by which point the tunnels will be closed and backfilled, according to the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company (SKB).
The process may still be delayed, as MKG, a non-governmental organisation working on nuclear waste has begun an appeal with the country’s court, calling for additional safety checks.
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