Swedish group applies for method to store nuclear waste

By Lennart Simonsson Nov 8, 2006, 15:40 GMT

Stockholm - The Swedish company that handles spent nuclear fuel applied Wednesday for official approval for a system to store spent radioactive waste in special copper-sealed cannisters.

'It is a milestone in the Swedish nuclear waste programme,' Claes Thegerstrom, head of the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company (SKB) said.

The application, consisting of 11 binders containing hundreds of documents and graphs, was to be reviewed by among others the Swedish Nuclear Inspectorate (SKI) and would take several years but 'long lead times are part of the nuclear energy system,' Thegerstrom said.

For the past 30 years, SKB that is funded by the operators of Sweden's 10 current nuclear reactors, has developed a method to store the spent fuel in cannisters that are 5 metres high and have a diameter of 1 metre, and weigh some 20-25 tons.

Pending final approval from the government, regulatory and environment authorities, the cannisters would be stored at 500 metres depth in granite bedrock at a planned final repository site.

In its application, SKB said it wanted to build the plant to make the cannisters at the Oskarshamn nuclear power plant in south-eastern Sweden.

The cost of the plant was estimated at 4 billion kronor (558 million dollars) and would employ 25 people, Thegerstrom said, adding the plant would only handle Swedish waste. Building of the plant could begin 2012 and the first cannisters be ready in 2018.

The technology has raised interest outside Sweden including in neighbouring Finland, Britain and South Africa, SKB said.

'The cannisters would be sealed by friction stir welding,' Saida Laârouchi-Engstrom of SKB said, adding that the welding seals would be inspected with X-rays and ultrasound.

Before being placed in the cannisters, the spent fuel would be dried and then transported to its resting place in the bedrock. The method would allow future retrieval of cannisters should need arise.

Oskarshamn is one of three locations for the country's 10 nuclear reactors, and it also houses an interim facility for nuclear waste.

Thegerstrom said SKB had yet to decide on whether Oskarshamn or Osthammar, north of Stockholm would be the location for the final repository of spent nuclear fuel.

Studies were pending on the bedrock and an application for a final storage repository was likely due in 2009, Thegerstrom said.

Peter Wretlund of the ruling Social Democratic Party in Oskarshamn's municipal council said 'a majority of parties and inhabitants backed the plan.'

Under Swedish law, municipalities have a veto in matters like where spent nuclear fuel can be stored. But both Oskarshamn with some 26,000 inhabitants and Osthammar that is the location for the Forsmark reactors have signalled interest in housing the permanent storage sites.

Wretlund said he opposed staging a local referendum on the plan, saying that the municipality had for over a decade openly discussed various aspects of nuclear waste and storage in working groups made up of a broad section of the inhabitants.