Status of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel management in Finland
Dr. Jari Tuunanen
Fortum Power and Heat Oy, Loviisa NPP
Loviisa NPP, P.O.Box 23, 07901 Loviisa, Finland

Key words; spent nuclear fuel, radioactive waste, decommissioning

Abstract

The main principles of the Finnish radioactive waste management program were fixed already in 1983 ina decision in principle (DiP) of the ministry of trade and industry. This DiP fixed the overall responsibilities,
schedule and reporting principles of the radioactive waste producers covering the operational waste, spentnuclear fuel and decommissioning. One key principle of the decision was that the waste producers arethemselves responsible for management of all the radioactive waste they produce, including the costs.
The status of the program today is such that all the facilities are ready on site of the Nuclear Power Plants(NPPs) in Olkiluoto and Loviisa for management of the operational radioactive waste. Both nuclear power plant
operators have their own waste treatment and storage facilities as well as own Low and Intermediate LevelWaste (LILW) repositories in operation. The spent nuclear fuel is stored at the NPP sites as well. The spent fuelmanagement program is organized through Posiva, a private company owned by the NPP operators Fortum andTVO. Just recently Posiva got a construction license for spent fuel encapsulation and final disposal facility.
Decommissioning plans have also been prepared as requested by the DiP. Money for decommissioning isreserved in the radioactive waste fund and the aim is to dispose all decommissioning waste to the existing LILW
repositories on site of the NPPs. In Finland the decommissioning plans cover only the radioactive parts of theNPPs.
This paper summarizes the status of the radioactive waste management program in Finland, with the main
focus on the radioactive waste and spent fuel produced at Loviisa NPP. It also presents some highlights ofresearch and development program on radioactive waste management and gives an overview of the plans for thefuture decommissioning.

Contents
1. Introduction
2. Spent nuclear fuel management
3. Operational waste management
4. Preparation for the future decommissioning
5. Management of industrial radioactive waste
6. Summary and conclusions
1. Introduction
There are four operating nuclear reactors inFinland: two Asea Atom BWR's of 880 MWe each inOlkiluoto site in the west-coast of Finland, and two
Russian designed VVER-440 reactors of about 500
MWe each in the Loviisa site, about 100 km east
from the capital Helsinki. The BWRs were taken into
operation early 1980's and the operator has justrecently applied for a 20 years prolongation of theoperational license until the end of 2038. The VVERs
started operation in 1987 and 1980, and they have alicense for 50 years of operation.

There is also one EPR-type PWR of 1600 MWe
under construction in Olkiluoto site, and one Russian
designed AES-2006 type PWR has a construction
license application under evaluation for a new
Hanhikivi site.
The main principles of the Finnish radioactive
waste management program were fixed in 1983 in thedecision in principle (DiP) of the Ministry of Tradeand Industry (MTI). The DiP determined that thelicense holders are themselves responsible forplanning and financing the management of their own
radioactive waste. Hence, there is no governmental orother national radioactive waste management
organization in Finland, like in some other countries.
After this introduction the second chapter describes
the status of the spent fuel management program inFinland. The focus of the third chapter is on theoperational waste management. The fourth chapter
presents the status of the plans for the futuredecommissioning of the reactors and the fifth one

6th East Asia Forum on Radwaste Management Conference
November 27-29, 2017, Osaka, Japan

discusses the management of institutional radioactive
waste in Finland, such as radiation sources from theindustry, hospitals and universities. The last chapter
presents a summary and conclusions. Along the papersome highlights of the R&D work are also presented.
2. SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL MANAGEMENT
The main aim of the DiP of MTI from 1983 wasthat the operators shall try to find an international
solution for the spent fuel management, in such a waythat the spent fuel, after reprosessing or directly,
would have been disposed of abroad. Direct disposal
in Finland was only the second option that time. The
deadline for the plans of interim storage of spent fuelwas 1984, the timeline for the selection of the site forspent fuel disposal facility was set to the year 2000
and the spent fuel disposal facility was requested tostart operation around 2020, if the operators had
decided to follow the second option.
During the early years of operation the spent fuelfrom Loviisa NPP was returned back to Russia(Soviet-Union). This activity was terminated in 1995
when the Finnish government decided to prohibit
export and import of spent nuclear fuel. At the sametime TVO had its own research program for finding
solution for their spent fuel management.
TVO decided to build an own wet spent fuelstorage, which gave them time to develop solution for
their spent fuel management. The original wet spent
fuel storage at Loviisa NPP was designed assumingthat all the fuel is returned to Russia soon after it isremoved from the reactors. Later the storage has been
expanded twice, first allowing more cooling time forthe spent fuel before returning it to Russia, and later
to make it possible to store all the spent fuel on site
after it was not possible to return it to Russia any
more. The capacity of the storage has later beenfurther expanded using high density racks, which areof Fortum's own design, allowing storage of all thespent fuel on site produced during 50 years ofoperation of the plant.
After it was not possible to return the spent fuelfrom Loviisa NPP to Russia Fortum and TVO started
to negotiate of co-operation. In 1995 the companies
reached an agreement which gave Posiva theresponsibility for planning the management and final
disposal of the spent fuel of these companies. Basedon this agreement TVO owns 60% and Fortum 40%of Posiva.
Posiva's programme on owners spent fuelmanagement has progressed well according to theDiP. Posiva selected Olkiluoto site for its final
disposal facility in the year 2000 and the site wasapproved by the parliament in 2001. Construction
license application for the spent fuel encapsulationand final disposal facility was left 2012 and thelicense was granted 2015. Now Posiva is working
with the operating license application, at the sametime with closing the remaining open issues from theconstruction license. The operating license
application shall be left around 2020, making it
possible to start final disposal of the spent fuel early2020's. Hence, about 40 years will be needed fromDiP to the operation of a spent fuel disposal facility.
This long journey is illustrated in Fig. 1 below.

Fig. 1: The main steps of Posiva's spent fuelmanagement program (source: Posiva).
The research and development work on spent
nuclear fuel disposal started already more than 40years ago in Finland. After Posiva selected theOlkiluoto site the research focused more on the site
issues, both above and below the ground. In addition,
Posiva has had a program for developing technology
for encapsulating the fuel, manufacturing the copper
canisters for the fuel, and the machines needed todispose it. An example of the machines developed isthe boring machine for disposal holes (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2: Posiva's machine for boring disposal hole(source: Posiva).

6th East Asia Forum on Radwaste Management Conference
November 27-29, 2017, Osaka, Japan3. OPERATIONAL WASTE MANAGEMENTThe objective of the DiP for operational waste
management was, that all the operational waste
produced shall be treated, stored and disposed of in
Finland. The deadline for taking disposal facilities inoperation was set to 1992.
The power companies Fortum and TVO had somediscussions about co-operation in the management of
their operational waste too, but they decided to build
their own final disposal facilities to the NPP sites.
TVO took its repository into operation in 1992 andFortum later in 1999. Hence, the targets of the DiP
have been fulfilled.
In Loviisa NPP, dry operational waste is packed in
200 l drums. The evaporate concentrates are cleaned
using Fortum's selective NURES inorganic ion
exchange materials. Several campaigns have been
carried out to treat concentrates with NURES andCsTreat. About 200 m3 have been treated during eachcampaign and until the end of 2013 totally 1460 m3
had been treated. As a result of this treatment there
are only 0,272 m3 of CsTreat left as waste. In Loviisa
CsTreat is used in 8 liter columns. Thus there are 34
spent columns left as waste, and they can be disposedof in three concrete containers, with outer volume ofabout 1,7 m3, each. In this way Fortum has saved
about 55 million euros in solidification and final
disposal costs at Loviisa NPP.
The wet operational waste, ion exchange resins andthose evaporate concentrates that can't be cleaned, aretreated in the solidification plant at Loviisa NPP site.
In the solidification process the waste is mixed withcements, blast furnace slag and additives in aconcrete waste container. The cementation plant isvery effective: 400-500 l of waste can be solidified
into a 1 m3 (inner volume) concrete container. The
cementation recipes are based on Fortum's own R&D
work, which still continues for further optimization of
the solidification process. See Fig. 3 for the mainprinciple of the solidification plant operation.

disposing of the solidified waste constructed. There isenough space for disposal of all the waste produced
during the 50 year operational life of Loviisa NPP. If
needed, more space can be built.
The safety of final disposal of the waste isevaluated in a long term safety case of the repository.
Currently Fortum is updating it as a part of a periodic
safety review of the repository.
4. PREPARATION FOR THE FUTURE
DECOMMISSIONING
In the decommissioning area the DiP determined
the time schedule for the operators for developing
decommissioning plans of their reactors. Every 5
years the operators were requested to present their
updated plans for decommissioning the reactors. TheDiP also required that the waste from thedecommissioning shall be disposed of either to theLILW repositories or to the spent fuel repository.
The operators have followed the DiP and presented
their decommissioning plans to the ministry eversince 1980's. Today the plans need to be updated
every 6 years. In the case of Loviisa NPP, the next
update will be submitted at the end of 2018.
Fortum is planning to dispose of all the radioactive
decommissioning waste from the Loviisa NPP to theon-site LILW repository. The inventory of thedecommissioning waste has been estimated based onplant measurements, operation experience and MCNP
simulations, and a conceptual design of the repository
extension for the decommissioning waste is available.
Fig. 4 shows the repository extension for thedecommissioning waste packages and for the large
components (e.g reactor pressure vessels, steamgenerators).
When the Loviisa LILW repository was built thefuture decommissioning was taken into account. For
example the entrance tunnel is so large that all the bigcomponents, such as reactor pressure vessel andsteam generators, can be transported to the repository
without cutting them into smaller peaces. This allows
cost-effective dismantling and disposal of the waste.

Fig. 3: Operation principle of Loviisa NPP
solidification plant.
The radioactive waste produced at Loviisa NPP isdisposed of to a disposal facility on site, locatedabout 100 m underground. At the moment there are
two waste caverns for operational waste in operation,
one for storing operational waste, and one forFig. 4: A view of the Loviisa LILW repository
extension for decommissioning waste.

6th East Asia Forum on Radwaste Management Conference
November 27-29, 2017, Osaka, Japan

The long term safety case for final disposal of theradioactive waste takes into account the disposal ofthe decommissioning waste to the repository.
If the Loviisa NPP operation will end after 50
years of operation, the licensing of thedecommissioning shall start early 2020's. The
licensing process for decommissioning starts with anenvironmental
impactassessmentfor
thedecommissioning and the disposal of thedecommissioning waste. In addition, the extension of
the repository needs to be licensed. The repository
extension may also need a political approval throughdecision in principle process in the parliament. It also
has to get a construction license and an new operating
license. For the decommissioning, also adecommissioning license will be needed in the future.
5.
MANAGEMENTOF
INDUSTRIAL
RADIOACTIVE WASTE
One area which was not covered by the old DiP is
the institutional radioactive waste. This waste is
typically produced in hospitals, universities and by
the research organizations. At the moment a part ofthis waste is stored and disposed of to TVO's LILW
repository at Olkiluoto NPP site through anagreement between TVO and the Ministry of Social
Affairs and Health. The disposal of this type of waste
to Olkiluoto LILW repository became possible after
TVO got an updated operating license for therepository, allowing also disposal of the waste fromthe new Olkiluoto 3 NPP unit.
The operating license of the Loviisa LILW
repository also allows disposal of small amount ofindustrial waste to the repository. So far, this option
has not been used. Otherwise, the repository islicensed for the waste produced at the Loviisa NPP
only.

Preliminary decommissioning plans, including
the cost estimates, are available for the existing NPPs.
About 5-10 years will be needed for licensing thedecommissioning and for the expansion of the LILW
repository for decommissioning waste before
dismantling works can begin. During this time also
the detailed dismantling plans shall be made anddecommissioning license application shall be left.
The disposal of the decommissioning waste to theLoviisa LILW repository has already been taken into
account in the long term safety case of the repository,
as well as in the design of it.
Fortum's R&D efforts have supported themanagement of radioactive waste from Loviisa NPP.
The main outcome of this effort are the NURES
products for cleaning radioactive water. In addition tothat, development of recipes for cementation of theliquid radioactive waste have led to very effective
cementation solutions for the wet radioactive waste.
These efforts still continue for further optimization ofthe waste management processes.

6. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONSThe Finnish radioactive waste management
program has progressed well according to the old DiP
from 1983. Only the last step of the spent fueldisposal remains to be completed: the beginning ofspent fuel disposal.
The operational waste from the existing reactors
can be handled with the existing infrastructure on theLoviisa and Olkiluoto NPP sites, even in the situationthat the operational life of the reactors is prolonged.
If the operation continues after the current operating
licenses, the repositories and the spent fuel storages
can be expanded. The time and scope of theexpansions of the spent fuel storages depend e.g on
the schedule of Posiva. The expansion of LILW
repositories for more operational waste is possible
provided the long term safety case shows the dose
rate limits for the population living in the repository
area in the future are met.

6th East Asia Forum on Radwaste Management Conference
November 27-29, 2017, Osaka, Japan