Sweden has commenced construction of a final storage facility for spent nuclear fuel, where highly radioactive waste will be stored for 100,000 years. Currently, there are thousands of metric tons of used solid fuel from nuclear power plants worldwide and millions of liters of radioactive liquid waste from weapons production sitting in temporary storage containers, some of which have begun leaking their toxic contents. Nuclear waste is notorious for the fact that it can remain dangerously radioactive for many thousands of years. 

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Sweden’s nuclear waste facility is only the second in the world after Finland last year built the world’s first deep-earth repository where it will bury nuclear waste for 100,000 years starting 2026. Dubbed ‘‘Onkalo’’, Finland’s repository is entombed in a bedrock more than 400 meters below the forests of southwest Finland. The facility sits atop a warren of tunnels sited next to three nuclear reactors on the island of Olkiluoto, approximately 240 kilometers from the capital of Helsinki. The Onkalo project is based on the so-called “KBS-3” method developed by the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company. KBS-3 is based on amulti-barrier principle whereby if one of the engineered barriers were to fail, the isolation of the radioactive waste is not compromised.

“Basically, the Onkalo project is that we are building an encapsulation plant and disposal facility for spent fuel. And it’s not temporary, it’s for good,” Pasi Tuohimaa, head of communications for Posiva, told CNBC via videoconference. Posiva is tasked with the responsibility of handling the final disposal of spent nuclear fuel rods at Onkalo.

The first-of-its-kind geological disposal facility has been hailed as a game-changer that’s likely to increase the appeal of nuclear energy, “Having a solution for the final disposal of spent fuel was like the missing part of the sustainable lifecycle for nuclear energy,” Tuohimaa said. According to Finnish Climate Minister Kai Mykkänen, Onkala provides the world with a model for sustainable nuclear waste management.

By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com

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