These are the last tests before Finland is expected to launch a world premiere: next year, the world’s first repository for high-level waste is scheduled to go into operation. The trial run has been underway at the Onkalo (Finnish for “little cave”) deep geological repository since the end of August.
Tests without radioactive waste
Operation of the repository will be comprehensively tested over the next few months. To this end, four disposal canisters will be installed in an emplacement drift and sealed with a natural mineral granulate called bentonite, says operating company Posiva Oy.
The trial run is conducted without radioactive waste – such as spent fuel assemblies from reactor operation that will be disposed of eventually. Nevertheless, Posiva Oy describes the current phase as an overall functionality test of all systems and equipment.
A long road
If the final tests are successful, Finland will be the first country in the world to implement long-term disposal of its high-level waste in a deep geological repository. According to Posiva Oy, the repository is the result of decades of research.
In Switzerland, too, radioactive waste is to be disposed of in a repository constructed deep underground. However, this project is not yet as advanced as Finland’s: Nagra is currently preparing the general licence applications and will submit these to the federal authorities in November – and thus request specific, separate sites for the waste encapsulation plant and the repository.
Following an extensive site selection process set out by the federal government, Nagra has proposed the Nördlich Lägern region as the site for the deep geological repository. The access to the repository is to be constructed in the community of Stadel. The federal government will review the applications and make its decision over the next few years. Construction work on the deep geological repository is currently scheduled to begin in around ten years.
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