Apocalypse later

By Daniel Bodenmiller

Currently there is about 250.000 – 300.000 tons of high level nuclear waste on our planet and this amount is only going to increase. 300.000 tons of highly radioactive waste is an alarmingly high amount, and the only conclusion to draw from this figure, is that it is time to do something, as worldwide there is no final disposal facility yet. Because it is us who benefit from nuclear power, it should also be us, not later generations, who deal with the waste. It is up to our generation to find a stable environment for the nuclear waste to decay until it reaches safe levels. There is only one problem: high level nuclear waste may take up to 100.000 years to reach safe levels. 

The world’s first try at a permanent repository for high level nuclear waste is located in the Finnish municipality of Eurajoki. The construction and research is executed by Posiva Oy, which is jointly owned by the Finnish nuclear power plant operators. The repository is located 450m underneath the ground inside the bedrock, where disposal canisters made from cast iron and copper will hold spent nuclear fuel. The nuclear waste is kept safe from the outside by multiple barriers. First is the cast iron canister, which protects the fuel from stress inside the bedrock. This canister is then placed into a copper canister to protect it from corrosion. Surrounding the canisters is a layer of bentonite clay, which will protect the canisters from jolts and prevent groundwater flow, due to its ability to act like a sponge when it comes in contact with water. Once the canisters are all in place the tunnels will be backfilled, so that no one can enter. But there’s a long time to go until then.  The repository will be filled step by step until the year 2100, when it will be sealed for eternity. If Onkalo turns out to be successful it will be the longest lasting, functioning facility of our society. It will be what our generations are remembered for.   

These are the canisters where used fuel rods are going to be stored for the next 100.000 years.

“If you were a person evaluating this concept from the outside - what would you be afraid of? Nothing.” Question answered by Timo Äikäs, Executive Vice President Posiva Oy

Unlike Timo Äikäs, I am in the lucky position of being able to evaluate Onkalo from the outside. And unlike Timo Äikäs, I am terrified. Building a facility like this is highly ambitious as it is impossible to predict 100.000 years into the future. Naturally I have a few concerns. I am concerned for example about the fact that the company in charge of Onkalo is owned by the nuclear power plant operators, which are unfortunately not only concerned about safety but also about money.   Another problem is that Onkalo´s possible failure will not affect any human being currently alive. This could lead to sloppiness and carelessness in the engineering and construction phase. One example is the final disposal containers, which are praised by Posiva as being non-corrosive, even though corrosion will absolutely inevitably take place and a study by the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden predicts that the canisters will only hold for several thousand years. But even if my concerns are unfounded and Onkalo turns out to work just fine, Onkalo is only one amongst many depositories which will have to be built worldwide .

Nationalization of a global problem is not the answer.  Finland wants to take responsibility for its nuclear waste, which is a good thing, except this sense of responsibility doesn´t have a very wide radius, due to the fact that the Finnish Nuclear Energy Act prohibits the import of nuclear waste. On the other hand, Finland imports electricity from neighboring countries, some of which is generated by nuclear power and thus creates nuclear waste abroad. National borders should not stand in the way of solving a problem, because very much like CO2 emissions, radioactive radiation doesn´t respect borders. A great example of this is the infamous Chernobyl incident in 1986, that resulted in significantly elevated radiation levels all over the western Soviet Union (as was) and most of Europe.

Furthermore, other nations might not be blessed with stable Finnish bedrock, sufficient financial funding for research and construction, or strict regulations and state supervision. Unless we want nations and corporations to take the easy way out and dump nuclear wastes into the ocean, a global strategy is needed.