Radioactive Waste Management: Disposal Concepts

UNDERGROUND DISPOSAL CONCEPTS

NRG conducts research and advices on surface and underground disposal concepts.
On this page the current situation with respect to disposal is discussed.

Current situation - World

1. On several locations experimental underground research facilities exist. They are used to assess the feasibility of the underground disposal option(s). Examples of such facilities can be found in France, Belgium, Germany and the United States, to name a few countries.
2. On some locations sub-surface facilities are operated (shallow burial) for low-active waste (France, Spain, United States, etc.)
3. Some deep underground disposal pilot facilities exist for high level waste (like the WIPP in the USA and a facility in Sweden).
4. Some special cases exist: liquid radwaste has been injected into deep clay layers and low active waste has been disposed of in former mines.

Current situation - Netherlands

All radioactive waste is in an interim storage facility with COVRA.
Research into deep underground waste disposal has a long tradition in the Netherlands. Co-operations exist with partner in Germany (e.g. GSF) and Belgium (e.g. SCK-CEN). Initially research focussed on disposal in salt formations. The so-called 'van Hattum and Blankevoort' design of a special mine for disposal of high active waste was a result of the OPLA research programme. During the succeeding CORA research programme the design was modified to make retrievability a feasible option.

For the study of disposal in clay the SCK-CEN design was used. Modifications were made to facilitate retrievability.

Retrievability

Retrievability places two main requirements on the design:

1. the disposal cells have to be designed such that the waste container can be retrieved easily from the disposal cell, i.e. the retrieval should not be much more complicated than the emplacement of the container;
2. the access shafts and access galleries cannot be sealed and closed while the retrievability requirement persists. After closure and sealing, the only way to retrieve the waste would be to build new accesses from the surface. The figure shows schematically the procedure to retrieve a canister from a disposal cell.

More information:
NRG, Radiation & Environment
Mr. A.D. Poley, PO Box 25, 1755 ZG Petten, Netherlands
Tel +31-224564333, Fax +31-224568491, Email: poley@nrg.eu

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