Injection of Liquid Radioactive Waste Into Deep Geological Formations at the Final Waste Disposal Sites Tomsk and Krasnoyarsk

A special procedure for final disposal of liquid radioactive waste (LLW, ILW, HLW) — injection into deep geological formations — was developed in the former USSR and employed since 1963. This procedure was practiced at the sites of the Research Institute for Reactor Engineering Dimitrovgrad and at radiochemical facilities in Tomsk-7 and Krasnoyarsk-26. The deposits (layers of sand, limestone) lie at depths below 200 m and are isolated from other ground water horizons and the surface by overlying layers with low permeability. At the Krasnoyarsk site a total of approx. 5 × 106 m3 of low- to high-level waste were disposed at depths of 180–280 m and 350–500 m; at the Tomsk site a total of approx. 3.7×107 m3 of liquid radwaste were disposed at depths of 180–280 m and 270–320 m. The EU-project for assessing the final disposal safety of the Tomsk and Krasnoyarsk sites resulted in the improvement of a database, the development of a generic assessment model for the injection sites, a site-specific model for the repositories, the assessment of the performance of the repositories and finally recommendations to safety authorities.

Mizunami Underground Research Laboratory in Japan: Pre-Excavation Site Characterization and Influence on Design Concepts

The Mizunami Underground Research Laboratory (MIU) will be constructed by the Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute (JNC) in central Japan. The project is planned in three overlapping phases consisting of I) Surface-based Investigation II) Construction and III) Operations Phases. This paper addresses the methods used to investigate the geological environment, the integration of the site knowledge into conceptual models and the application of the knowledge in designing the facility; some aspects of the future experimental programme are discussed.

Going Underground at the Selected Site for Site Confirmation

The long-term programme aimed at selection of a site for a deep repository was initiated in Finland in 1983. This programme has come to end and a new phase aimed at implementation of the geological disposal of spent fuel has been started. In this new phase the first milestone is the application for a construction license for the disposal facility around 2010 and thereafter, as a second step, the operation license in 2020. To fulfil the needs for detailed design of the disposal system, an underground rock characterisation facility, “ONKALO”, will be constructed at the representative depth at Olkiluoto. The excavation of this facility will start the work for underground characterisation, testing and demonstration which is planned to be a continuous activity throughout the whole life cycle of the deep repository.