Have deep geological repositories already been constructed anywhere else?
How far advanced are disposal programmes in other countries? Repositories for low- and intermediate-level waste already exist, and Finland is running final emplacement tests in the first deep geological repository for high-level waste.
Many countries rely on nuclear energy. The daily operation of nuclear power plants produces high-level waste and spent fuel assemblies as well as low- and intermediate-level waste that have to be stored and disposed of. Countries such as Sweden, Finland, Hungary and South Korea have been operating deep geological repositories for low- and intermediate-level waste for years and even decades.
International collaboration
Repository projects for high-level waste are also at an advanced stage in Finland, Sweden and France. By collaborating closely with these countries, Switzerland can benefit from their progress. Some countries, such as France or Spain, also dispose of their low-level waste in near-surface facilities.
Here we provide an overview of where other countries stand with regard to the disposal of their radioactive waste.
Finland
The Onkalo repository for spent fuel assemblies is located in south-west Finland. It is the world’s first deep geological repository for high-level waste. Construction on the Baltic coast – more precisely on the Olkiluoto peninsula – began at the end of 2016. In the spring of 2021, Posiva, the Finnish waste management organisation, started constructing the first emplacement drifts. Final emplacement tests are currently underway. The high-level radioactive waste will be enclosed in copper canisters and emplaced in the crystalline rock at a depth of over 400 metres.
The Olkiluoto and Loviisa nuclear power plants each have a repository for low- and intermediate-level waste and a wet storage facility for spent fuel assemblies.
France
The French waste management organisation, Andra, has been operating an underground laboratory since the year 2000. It is located in Bure within the Meuse Département, around 150 kilometres from the German state of Saarland. The site for the high-level waste repository, Cigéo, is located just a few kilometres from the underground laboratory. The waste will eventually be emplaced in clay rock at a depth of around 500 metres. The construction licence application was submitted in January 2023. The application documentation included 10,000 pages of technical reports. The deep geological repository is scheduled to go into operation in 2035.
Two near-surface facilities for short-lived low- and intermediate-level waste, Centre de la Manche and Centre de l’Aube, already exist (Spain also has one such facility, see corresponding section).
Netherlands
The Dutch waste management organisation, COVRA, operates a centralised interim storage facility at surface level in Borsele, located on the estuary of the Schelde River that flows into the North Sea. The most striking building is the orange HABOG storage facility for high-level waste, which has been in operation since 2003 and will serve as a long-term interim storage facility for at least one hundred years.
However, due to the Netherlands’ geological setting, the waste is not planned to remain at the surface but will be disposed of in deep geological repositories. Just like the Swiss interim storage facility, Zwilag, HABOG was constructed in compliance with very high safety standards, i.e. it can resist fire, earthquakes, explosions, direct aircraft impact and flooding.
Sweden
In Sweden, spent fuel assemblies will be disposed of in the Söderviken repository. The repository site is located close to the Forsmark nuclear power plant in the community of Östhammar near the Baltic Sea, around 140 kilometres north of Stockholm.
The Swedish waste management organisation, SKB, submitted the corresponding construction licence application in 2011. In 2022, the Swedish government granted the licence, and in 2025, SKB began constructing the deep geological repository.
In the crystalline rock beneath the Forsmark nuclear power plant, a deep geological repository for low- and intermediate-level waste has been in operation since 1988 and is currently being expanded. In addition, research has been conducted on the crystalline basement since 1995 at the Äspö Rock Laboratory close to Oskarshamn.
At one point, questions arose regarding the corrosion resistance of the copper disposal canister. As a consequence, SKB submitted addenda to the application. The encapsulation plant for spent fuel assemblies is planned to be constructed in Oskarshamn around 350 kilometres further south where spent fuel assemblies are already stored in an underground wet storage facility (CLAB interim storage facility). It has been in operation since 1985.
The construction licence application for the encapsulation plant was also submitted in 2011. In October, the community of Östhammar approved the construction of the deep geological repository. Prior to this, Oskarshamn had approved the construction of the encapsulation plant.
Spain
Spain has been disposing of short-lived low-level waste in a near-surface facility in El Cabril since 1992. Engineered barriers such as backfilled and covered concrete vats enclose the waste but are subject to human activities and environmental impacts such as erosion. The barrier function provides sufficient safety for a limited time period of up to several hundreds of years. However, such facilities require ongoing supervision and maintenance until the radioactive substances have decayed to a harmless level.
Hungary
Since late 2012, Hungary has been emplacing low- and intermediate-level waste in the Bátaapáti repository, which was constructed in crystalline rock at a depth of around 250 metres. The search for a site for a high-level waste repository is ongoing.
Canada
Canada also plans to dispose of spent fuel assemblies in a deep geological repository. In November 2024, it was announced that the repository was to be constructed in a layer of crystalline rock in the municipality of Ignace. The selected region is located in the north-west of the province of Ontario, between Thunder Bay on Lake Superior and Winnipeg, the provincial capital of Manitoba.
The site was selected as a result of a participatory approach launched in 2010. Two fundamental process requirements had to be met: first, the site had to be able to comply with strict safety standards, and second, informed and willing host municipalities had to be found.
The Canadian Nuclear Waste Management Organisation (NWMO) only considered regions in which at least one municipality had applied for the repository. Another condition was local collaboration between political municipalities and Indigenous communities. In the selected region, the political municipality of Ignace and the Indigenous Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation (WLON) voted in favour of hosting the repository.
From the original 22 municipalities, the NWMO narrowed down suitable sites in a step-by-step process, partly as a result of increasingly detailed investigations. For example, as in Switzerland, the NWMO conducted a deep borehole campaign.
The next step is the licensing phase. According to WLON, the project is subject to “probably the most comprehensive Environmental Impact Assessment in Canadian history.” Construction of the deep geological repository in the crystalline rock could begin in the 2030s at a planned depth of around 500 metres.
Germany
In Germany, low- and intermediate-level waste was emplaced in the former Morsleben salt mine from 1971 to 1998. The repository was then backfilled, and an application has been submitted for the decommissioning and closure of this former East German repository.
Between 1967 and 1978, low- and intermediate-level waste was experimentally disposed of in the former Asse mine. Today, attempts are being made to retrieve this waste. Schacht Konrad is a former iron ore mine that is currently being converted into a deep geological repository for long-lived intermediate-level waste.
The site selection process for a deep geological repository for “heat-producing waste” (high-level waste and spent fuel assemblies) was launched anew in 2017 and started with a “blank map of Germany”. Potential host rocks include granite, salt and clay. The most suitable site is to be determined in a three-phase process. There is no exact time schedule. In 2022, it was merely announced that the search for a repository had been delayed and that it would not be possible to determine a suitable site by 2031, as originally planned.
Das Standortauswahlverfahren für geologische Tiefenlager für «wärmeentwickelnde Abfälle» (hochaktive Abfälle und abgebrannte Brennelemente) wurde neu gestartet. Es hat 2017 mit einer «weissen Landkarte Deutschland» begonnen. Als Wirtgesteine kommen Granit, Salz oder Ton in Frage. Der beste Standort soll in drei Phasen bestimmt werden. Einen genauen Zeitplan gibt es nicht. Im Jahr 2022 wurde lediglich bekannt, dass sich die Endlagersuche verzögere und ein geeigneter Standort nicht – wie ursprünglich angestrebt – bis im Jahr 2031 bestimmt werden kann.
USA
In the USA, the Department of Energy (DOE) has been operating the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlsbad, New Mexico, since 1999. This is a repository for military transuranic waste built into rock salt at a depth of 655 metres. In 2014, a radiological event occurred, but the radiation levels detected above ground were found to be clearly below the dose limit for the population. The closure of WIPP is expected around 2050. The USA has several near-surface disposal facilities for low- and intermediate-level waste.
