Sitemap  | Contact  | Links  | FAQ
Waste management - how?
Wastes Types of radioactive waste High-level waste Management of spent fuel Low- and intermediate-level waste Volumes Transport Radiation and radioactive waste Transmutation Waste producers Nuclear power plants Nuclear fuel cycle Reprocessing Operational waste from NPPs Decommissioning of NPPs Medicine, industry and research Waste management concept Waste management programme Why deep geological disposal? Ethics and responsibility Waste management options Demonstration of disposal feasibility Long-term safety Retrievability Deep geological repositories Geological repository HLW Geological repository LLW Waste management today Packaging Interim storage Waste inventories Natural analogues Natural analogues for engineered barriers Natural analogues for glass Natural analogues for metal Natural analogues for clay Natural analogues for geological barriers Geological barriers – cristalline rock Geological barriers – clay Example ammonite Example salt deposit Natural reactors Research Laboratory studies Rock laboratories Grimsel Geology Experiments Mont Terri Geology Experiments Other countries Belgium Finland France Germany The Netherlands Spain Sweden United Kingdom Canada Japan USA

Waste management options

There are only a few alternatives to deep geological disposal of radioactive waste.

 

For high-level waste (HLW), deep geological disposal is the only viable option. Even if transmutation technology were to function at some time in the future, a deep geological repository would still be required for the remaining waste. The idea continually surfaces that HLW could be shot into space, but the risk of an accident is too high; the waste would fall to the earth's surface with no possibility for control.

 

For low- and intermediate-level waste (L/ILW), the option of disposal at the surface exists and is already practised in France and Spain. In Switzerland, however, deep geological disposal is also legally prescribed for L/ILW.

 

 

Further reading (in german):

 

Entsorgungskonzepte gestern und heuteIm Vergleich: Entsorgungskonzepte gestern und heute (1,1 MB)

(Beitrag im Nagra Info 20, Mai 2006)

El-Cabril_anexo

Partial view of the Spanish El Cabril surface disposal facility for low-level waste. Empty disposal compartments can be seen in the front foreground of the photograph. (Image: Enresa)

 

Webdesign & CMS by INM AG