Gerhard Proehl:
Now I will give you an overview of the options of disposal of radioactive waste. Before we go
into detail, let’s talk a little bit about the disposal terminology. Disposal means emplacementof waste in an appropriate facility without the intention of retrieval. This means the waste
should stay at the disposal site forever. And this disposal facility, this is an engineered
facility where waste is emplaced for disposal of course. There are near-surface disposal
facilities which are located on the earth’s surface or within a few tens of meter below theground level, so everything is very shallow. In contrast to that there are geological disposal
facilities, these are facilities for radioactive waste disposal located underground and usually
several hundred meters or more below the surface. A stable geological formation is needed
to provide this potential for long term isolation of radionuclides from the biosphere.
The aims of disposal of radioactive waste is quite simple, is to contain the waste, to isolate
the waste from the accessible biosphere, and also to reduce the likelihood of inadvertent
human intrusion into the waste. I mean the knowledge about this disposal might get lostand future generations might look for some mining activities, might look for somecommodities, and may unintentionally intrude the disposal and this should also be avoided
due to design features.
So, we look at the current status of disposal of waste. I mean several designs have alreadybeen developed for the disposal facilities and these designs have a different degree ofcontainment and isolation capacity and this depends on the type of waste and the activity
which should be disposed off. I mean in some countries various types of disposal facilities
have been constructed and are all in operation.
Let’s look at the waste classification scheme. A number of classes, dependent on the halflife and also on the activity in the waste. First of all, this is high level waste and high level
waste is mainly some spent fuel or waste from reprocessing. We have intermediate level
waste and low level waste and very low level waste and very short-lived level waste. This is
so to say categorization depends on the activities which are present in the waste or on thehalf-life. Sometimes it is also about exempted waste, this is waste which is radioactive, butwhich cannot be managed. For example, this could be waste containing potassium-40 fromfertilizers, something like that. And here we have again this very short-lived waste, very low
level waste, low level waste, intermediate level waste, high level waste, and depending on
the activity and half-life, I mean lower the activity or higher the activity, greater should be

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the depths at which the waste should be disposed off. (0:05:00). So, high level waste goesto the deep underground, so geological disposal, whereas very low level waste and low level
waste can stay on the surface, of course with some technical barriers.
This is an example of near-surface disposal, this is for short-lived radioactive waste or for
lower active resources, and this can be found in some countries. Geological disposal is notavailable yet, but geological disposal is going to be – licensing procedures are going on in
Finland and Sweden to construct and operate such a geological disposal facility for highlevel waste. An idea which came up during the last years or 1 or 2 decades is the borehole
disposal. This could be appropriate in particular for countries which don’t have big nuclear
programs, but which have only some sources for medicine or for research, because thisborehole is suitable for all types of disused radioactive sources and it provides a safe andsecure solution and one has not to wait for until a geological disposal is finished or is inoperation. However, borehole disposal is also not available yet, it’s still an idea. So, all of
this, we have this disposal system consisting of confinement where the waste is disposed off
in the geosphere with overlying rock and the biosphere.
And if you go again for the terminology, ___ containment, these are methods or physicalstructures to prevent or control the releases and the dispersion of radioactive substances.
The confinement is prevention or control of releases of radioactive material to theenvironment in operation or in accidents. So, the most important point for disposal is theisolation and the isolation capability and isolation means this is a physical separation andretention of radioactive waste away from people and the environment and this may need tolook at timeframes of several hundred years for short-lived waste, I mean short-lived also inthis context is also ___ so several hundred years would be 10 or more than 10 half-life ___.
However, the intermediate level waste and high level waste has to be looked at more
carefully and the period is for at least several 1000 years. The isolation, of course, this is an
inherent feature of geological disposal. So, the disposal system, what we have the nearfield, are types of waste – The origin, the nature, the quantities, and the properties of thewaste, and finally, the radionuclide inventory. Then we have some system engineering for
waste conditioning and packaging and disposal units and engineered barriers that cover the
disposal facility and drainage features. We have also to know about the extent andproperties of the zone disturbed by any excavation or construction work. All these features
have to be taken into account in the safety assessment. Then we have also the far field.
(0:10:00) The far field is the way from the facility to the biosphere and it includes geology,

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hydrogeology, hydrology, and geochemistry, and finally the biosphere, the location of
disposal facility, climate, and atmosphere, water bodies, the biota, the salts present, thetopography, and the area of the site, and of course the local population and humanactivities.
Let’s talk about some examples of planned or existing disposal facilities. Let’s start withnear-surface facility, which is landfill for very low level wastes. In Lithuania, and this is justa buffer storage facility, and it is located close to the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant in anindustrial site, it’s in operation. It’s very low level waste. It contains relatively low activities.
The waste is stored – is disposed in such disposal modules. We have the waste ___ andhere we have some barriers to prevent that waste from entering the biosphere. This is in
Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant. This is the same again, Ignalina. Here you see the waste
packages. Waste is compacted or packed in such flexible intermediate bulk containers.
Again, here is the waste and this is surrounded by barriers to prevent leakage.
This is a near-surface disposal facility in France and it is for very low level waste. You see
here some pictures. This is a facility and all waste disposal in this facility is done under thismobile shelter and there are a number of mobile shelters. This facility went into operation in2003 and it is dedicated for very low level waste and it was the first of its kind in the world.
In this facility about 30,000 cubic meters are disposed per year. There are trenches, nearly
180 meters long and 25 meters wide and they are dug several meters deep in a clay layer
and after filling, the trenches are covered by a capping system composed of natural
materials and a geomembrane, ensuring water tightness. As I said, all operations are
conducted under the mobile shelter. So, mobile shelter can be moved from one trench toanother on a rail-sliding system and the interesting thing is that disposal cells are excavateddirectly in a clay layer, down to depths of 8 meters. And the trenches are operated one byone. If one is free, disposed, and then the next one starts. So, in this case only one of thetrenches are open, all others are covered. When people work on it, then it is covered by ashelter to prevent (0:15:00) intrusion of rain and water.
Here you see is a profile, the disposal trenches are between 0 and 30 meters underground,
above the water table and the trench is dug into the clay and in the post-closure phaseeverything is filled with material which prevents the intrusion of water.

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This is another example of near-surface disposal. These yellow barrels are very famous,they are disposed here in layers and then covered by material, but this is not in France, thisis somewhere else.
Here we have the example of a near-surface disposal facility in El Cabril, Spain. It is also forvery low level waste, for low level waste and intermediate level waste. Everything is above
ground and these are, so to say, the technical barriers for this disposal. Here you see ascheme of this disposal facility. I mean this is very simple. This is just a big concrete
structure which is protected against wind and weather.
This is a plant, near-surface disposal facility in Belgium. This is for category A waste.
Category A waste is short-lived waste with low and intermediate level specific activity. I
mean it is mainly short-lived but may contain also some other stuff. This has a volume ofabout 50,000 cubic meter and about 0.5% of total activity of all waste. And this looks likethat in the operational phase and in the post-closure phase. Then it will be covered by somematerial. This again is the Belgium example. So, there are 3 types of monoliths which areused for disposal of waste in this structure and this disposal facility has a fixed steel roof
attached to modules, an inspection room and an inspection gallery to allow inspection.
Let’s come back to borehole disposal activity for radioactive sources in more detail. So, ahole is drilled to the underground to depths of 100 meters or more. Then the waste
packages are filled into this hole and then everything is packed with some material, often
bentonite which has some absorption effect and we have repository seal and then that’s it.
It’s quite a simple concept, but it is only applicable for sources with a very small volume.
Nothing for large volumes. You can see, again, this canister also has some barriers. This is acontainer of the source, this is the capsule, then we have some pack filling and anotherbarrier. So, there is a number of barriers. This is a multi-barrier system to prevent suchmaterials cannot leak.
This is in Sweden. This facility (0:20:00) was designed for disposal of short-lived radioactive
waste, with low and intermediate level activity from nuclear power plants, hospital, industry
users and facilities. It is underground. This is Baltic Sea, this is the shoreline, and it was
built between 1982 and 1988, at depths of 5 to 100 meter in a structure under the Baltic
seafloor, about 1 km away from the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant. The waste here isdeposited in cavities, which were excavated into the rock, to be flexible in configuration that

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the waste fits well. This facility is in operation since 20 years. Close to this area the Swedish
disposal facility for high level waste is planned to be constructed, and as you see, this is on
the shoreline. It is under the seabed and this landscape will change in the next 1000 or
10,000 years, and all these water bodies here, due to the lift of landscape, this water will
disappear and the sea will fall shallow. This is a new disposal facility, also in Sweden, in thesame area, and this is for intermediate level waste. This is similar in design, it isunderground and very old granite and the waste is then stored in such structures.
Structures are sealed and at one point in time everything will be closed.
Let’s go to geological disposal for high level waste. Again, this is high level waste and this isalso in Sweden. The host rock is granite, the granite is very old, I think billions of years,
pretty old, and in this granite caverns are excavated and waste is put into such holes. These
are copper canisters with height of 5 meters. Copper canisters have a diameter of 1 meterand the mass is about 25 tons. So, it needs huge machinery to handle this stuff. Then they
are put into this hole and then sealed. This is copper, copper is used because this is granite,
granite is not a dry host rock, because it always has some pores or some cavities, somepasses where water might infiltrate and that’s why copper has been selected and this should
seal the waste for a very long time. In total a huge amount of copper will be disposed off
also in this disposal facility. Here you see such a copper canister and this will be fixed, theupper part will be fixed to that. (0:25:00). This copper goes into ___.
Let’s start with the spent fuel. There is a container for spent fuel and this spent fuelcontainment goes into the copper canister. The copper canister is sealed and this is then put
into the caverns in the crystalline bedrock at depths of 500 meters. And the canister issurrounded by bentonite clay in individual deposit holes. The total cost of this, at least an
estimation, that was communicated to me 2 years ago or 3 years ago, was about 10 to 12
billion Euro, it’s about 10 to 12 billion dollars something in this order of magnitude.
This is some geological disposal for high level waste in Finland. It’s in principle similar. So,
host rock is the same, it’s also granite, and again, there is the fuel, the fuel goes into theassembly, into the canister, the canister into the copper, the bedrock, and then filled withbentonite for sealing at depths of 400 to 500 m. This is a disposal for high level in Finland.
It is also close to the sea. Finland, very likely, will be the first ever facility for the safe
disposal of spent fuel. This is in Finland. You see a cavern in the bedrock, in the granite. So,
granite is a very hard rock, so you can imagine the efforts to construct such caverns. This

Page 5 of 7requires really special equipments. This disposal is called Onkalo, in Finland, and it consistsof system of such tunnels. Also this system or these tunnels are used to characterize thehost rock, which also provides an important input for the development of the safety caseand the safety assessment.
This is from the United States, and this is the so called WIPP, waste isolation pilot plant, and
it is authorized to store transuranic radioactive waste for 10,000 years. The waste is fromresearch and production of United States’ nuclear weapons. It is quite similar, there areunderground caverns and they are stored or disposed off in special containers which prevent– which gives an additional potential for isolation.
This is in Germany, one example. This is a geological disposal of low and intermediate level
waste. It started, the planning started I think in 1982, there was the first safety report on
this. It is a disposal site in a former iron ore mine near Braunschweig in Germany, this is
the one in north. So, the first plans were in 1982 or something like that. Now its schedule isto start in 2022, closure to be a few years later, (0:30:00) I don’t know, and the maximum
capacity is about 303,000 cubic meter of waste. It is an old iron mine. This mine is very dry,because over the iron mine there is a very thick clay layer which prevents rain water andground water to go into this disposal facility.
Let’s come to the summary. I think we have seen some examples of waste disposal facilities
both for low level waste, but also for medium and for high level waste and these concepts
which are in construction. So, I think it is important to know that we can learn from othermember states’ experience and design solutions and to know what works well and whatwork not so well to have continuous improvement of such disposal systems. We have also
seen that there are many ways of providing long term safety and many concepts andobviously there is no single best disposal solution for near-surface or geological waste,
everything depends also on the geological circumstances in a country. I mean Swedish
disposal facility is on granite, because they have only granite as a host rock. In othercountries there might be also salt formation, which are suitable for waste or clay formation
which are suitable for waste. So, this depends on country by country. I mean we havedifferent kind of wastes, so we need also different types of facilities to be designed toaddress the disposal inventory and also to take into account the characteristics of the site
and the available resources. Technical and natural barriers need to be explored andevaluated to assess the long term safety and this is the key element for the development ofPage 6 of 7

the safety assessment and the safety case. And as this is quite a long term process to comeback to construction and design construction of disposal facilities, it is also kind of acontinuous iterative process between design and safety assessment facilities and looking at
it in a holistic view, considering the whole system.
Thank you very much.

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