Humans are finally close to creating the world’s first repository to dump nuclear waste in and lock it for around 1,00,000 years, the duration it will take the radioactive material to decay to roughly the same level as natural uranium ore in the ground.
The nuclear dustbin is located deep beneath a Finnish forest, with tunnels blasted into billion-year-old rock that might soon hold the world’s most dangerous waste.
Step into the lift inside a cave in Finland and descend until the lift flashes 433.
That is the number of metres below ground in Eurajoki, southwest Finland, where humanity is preparing to bury spent radioactive fuel left over from decades of nuclear power generation.
Every nuclear plant produces waste that remains radioactive for tens of thousands of years. Since the first plants came online in the 1950s, countries have been wrestling with the problem of disposing of nuclear waste. Until now, most of that waste has sat cooling in temporary water pools, a temporary solution to an everlasting issue. Finland is about to change that.
Blasted into 1.9-billion-year-old bedrock, Onkalo is expected to become the world’s first permanent underground repository for spent nuclear fuel.
Finland’s nuclear safety authority is due to issue its final approval this month, after which an operating licence can be granted.
“We hope to start operations at the end of this year, or most probably early next year,” said Philippe Bordarier, chief executive of nuclear operator TVO, told Science Alert news.
Above ground, spent fuel rods will be encased in thick, highly corrosion-resistant copper canisters.
These will then be lowered 433 metres into holes drilled in the tunnel floors, packed with bentonite clay, which is a natural mineral that swells when wet to form a seal.
The facility has capacity for 6,500 tonnes of uranium, enough to hold waste from all five of Finland’s nuclear reactors, with deposits planned for 100 years before the vault is permanently sealed.
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