sweden

Sweden and nuclear waste ...

How 2 Swedish towns vied for nuclear waste (September, 2009)

After years of research Sweden is poised to create the world’s first ever permanent storage site for nuclear waste (June, 2009)

Nuclear waste to be stored north of Stockholm (June, 2009)

Forsmark for Swedish nuclear waste (June 2009)

Sweden picks site for nuclear dump (June, 2009)

Östhammar wins bid to store nuclear waste (June, 2009)

Sweden selects site (June, 2009)

Sweden poised to bury nuclear waste for 100,000 yrs (May, 2009)

Sweden claims nuclear waste storage safe (April, 2009)

The Swedish NGO Office for Nuclear Waste Review (MKG)

The Swedish Nuclear Waste Management process case Study (2004)

How 2 Swedish towns vied for nuclear waste

By Sam Knight

Published: September 18 2009 13:25 | Last updated: September 18 2009 13:25
As posted at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/e8ea6602-a322-11de-ba74-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1

An underground tunnel at the Äspö Hard Rock laborator
The Äspö Hard Rock laboratory, in Oskarshamn, where scientists test nuclear waste storage methods

Civic competition is a deep and ancient force. Ever since towns were towns, they have found ways to assert their superiority over one another, through commerce, war and other, more sporting encounters. The thrill of outdoing a neighbour, the fear of losing to the rivals from along the shore, are apparently universal human urges and the world crackles with all kinds of local contests, from the town lantern competitions of the Philippines to America’s “Best Tennis Town” and the tidy villages of Ireland.

The waste facility at Forsmark power station, Östhammar
The waste facility at Forsmark power station, Östhammar
A few of these competitions are born of a culture so specific they can be hard to understand. In the Thai town of Phuket, temples founded by Chinese immigrants compete to produce extraordinary displays of human self-harm and mutilation, known as mah song. In Sweden, meanwhile, two municipalities, Östhammar and Oskarshamn, have spent the past seven years competing for the right to host the world’s first high-level nuclear waste storage facility.

Although it comes in many varieties, nuclear waste is short on what most people consider winning qualities. It is the downsides that catch our eye, and, of these, high-level nuclear waste has a peculiarly rich array. This kind of waste is normally “spent fuel”, long rods of uranium that have been burnt in a nuclear reactor. No longer capable of supplying the steady chain reaction that a power station demands, the bundles of radioactive metal emerge at the end of their useful lives to become a terrifying hazard.

They are hot, for a start. Fuel rods come out of a reactor at around 400°C and take 30 or 40 years to become safe enough to handle, a century to cool completely. As a result, they are often placed under water, which also cloaks their radioactivity. Because although only around 5 per cent of the uranium in fuel rods decomposes in a nuclear reactor, that is enough to spawn hundreds of exotic elements and isotopes, most of which fizz with harmful ionizing radiation. Few people have ever been exposed to nuclear fuel in this state and none has lived to describe what it feels like. In 2003, a Canadian report calculated that if you stood one metre away from unshielded spent fuel, fresh from the reactor, you would receive 10 Sieverts (Sv) of radiation in 36 seconds. That is enough to kill you several times over and in any number of ways, but you would probably burn to death.

Graphic: Final repository for spent nuclear wasteRadiation, of course, diminishes with time. The problem with high-level nuclear waste is that there is so much danger to lose. If you returned after 10 years to the same spent fuel that killed you when it came out of the reactor, it would kill you again, but you would have stand next to it for about 50 hours this time. After 100 years, high-level nuclear waste is merely poisonous in a more conventional sense and would only do you real harm if you inhaled or ingested some of its longer-lived radioactive contents, such as caesium, strontium or plutonium. Inside the body, these gravitate to the blood and bones, weakening the immune system and causing cancer. One of the earliest known radioactive ailments was “necrotic jaw”, suffered by the painters of luminous watch dials in the 1920s, who licked their radium-tipped paintbrushes to make a nice sharp point and then had their mouths fall apart. Scientists agree that high-level nuclear waste should be kept out of reach of humans for a minimum of 100,000 years.

The people of Östhammar and Oskarshamn know all this – not that I heard anyone mention the necrotic jaw. Geologists and physicists have been convinced since the 1970s that high-level nuclear waste can be stored safely, as long as it is buried hundreds of metres underground in secure repositories. The problem has been convincing the rest of us. In the US, Germany, Switzerland and Japan, all attempts to designate geologically suitable sites or find communities willing to accept nuclear waste repositories have failed. Other countries, such as the UK, have given themselves long, mid-century deadlines for dealing with the question. Only Finland and France are at a similar stage as Sweden, with all three countries expecting to open repositories some time around 2025.

The proposed site for the high-level waste facility in Oskarshamn

But as things stand, there is not a single, permanent storage facility for civilian high-level nuclear waste anywhere in the world. Instead, hundreds of thousands of tonnes of spent fuel (35,000 tonnes in the EU; 100,000 in the US) sit in cooling ponds with no final destination. And with the world’s nuclear generating capacity forecast to rise by one-third in the next 20 years, these ponds will not be big enough forever. There will come a point when we all have to start digging.

Seen this way, Östhammar and Oskarshamn, which already have six nuclear reactors between them, might seem models of Scandinavian rationality and civic responsibility. But Sweden’s relationship with nuclear power is more complicated than that. For nearly 30 years, the country was in the odd position of relying on nuclear for around 40 per cent of its energy needs, while at the same time trying to get rid of it. In 1980, Swedes voted to phase out the country’s 12 nuclear reactors, an official goal that stood until this year, when the government said it would seek to overturn the original referendum result and build a new generation of reactors. But nuclear power, and by extension, nuclear waste, remains a divisive issue in Sweden. Although about 80 per cent of people in Östhammar and Oskarshamn want nuclear waste in their municipalities, only 40 per cent of the Swedish population wants the repository anywhere at all. In other words, the people of these towns are anomalous, even among their own kind.

The man in charge of choosing the community that will host the waste facility is Claes Thegerström. He has been searching for a home for Sweden’s high-level waste for 20 years and is the president of SKB, the country’s nuclear waste company. With silvery hair and a ready smile, he resembles a friendly fox. “It took a hundred years to build the big very nice cathedrals in France,” Thegerström told me. “And we are doing the same but downwards instead of up to the sky.”

Geologists assess granite formations

SKB has a lot of money. It was set up in 1977 to solve Sweden’s waste problem and is funded by a small levy on nuclear power. Its cash pile has grown over the years to SKr40bn (£3.25bn). Like most people, I assumed that money was a big part of the reason why Östhammar and Oskarshamn might be willing to accept high-level nuclear waste. “It will certainly be a factor in their development,” said Thegerström. SKB is planning to spend SKr25bn (£2bn) building the repository, a seven-year project that will bring 750 jobs. A further 220 jobs are then assured for the century that it will take to fill the repository with 12,000 tonnes of waste. On top of that, the chosen municipality will get new roads and infrastructure for the building of the underground complex – a series of descending shafts and radiating chambers, occupying about 4 sq km of bedrock.

But, as Thegerström explained, there is a twist. After years of competition, the mayors of Östhammar and Oskarshamn got together earlier this year and agreed to split a pot of SKr2bn (£162m) in pure “added investment” that had been promised to the winner. Under the deal, the loser would get 75 per cent of the fund – roughly equivalent to each municipality’s annual budget – as a reward for taking part in the selection process.

To my mind, this created a strong incentive to come second: win the cash, not the waste. But for Thegerström it was proof that the towns also have ephemeral motives: a desire to do something “interesting”, pride in doing “a very necessary thing” for Sweden and an eagerness to be chosen ahead of the other. SKB selected its two final contenders for the repository scheme in 2002 and for Thegerström the resulting element of civic rivalry has helped drive the process along. “What basic forces are driving people?” He said. “One of our values is competition.”

I went to Östhammar on the kind of summer’s day that power companies choose to shoot their adverts. The municipality is a two-hour drive north of Stockholm and a succession of diminishing roads lead out through pine forests and brilliant green meadows to the shore. Only 5,000 people, a quarter of the municipality’s population, live in the town of Östhammar itself. The nuclear power station at the village of Forsmark is the municipality’s most popular tourist attraction and its second-largest employer; 1,000 people work there. SKB also has a waste facility at the site, on a wind-whipped spit of land, edging into the Baltic, and most visitors to Forsmark like to see that too.

That’s where I met Inger Nordholm, one of three “community acceptance officers” for SKB, who has spent the past decade persuading the people of Östhammar that a high-level waste facility would be a welcome addition to the neighbourhood. Gulls winged over our heads in the blue sky and the ropes on a row of flagpoles cracked in the breeze. Nordholm loves her work. “It’s very special I think,” she said. “I work in public acceptance 24 hours a day. Sometimes it takes me two hours to buy a litre of milk.”

She took me to see Forsmark’s existing nuclear waste facility, in an underground chamber that holds Sweden’s low-level and intermediate waste 50m below the Baltic Sea. Low-level nuclear waste is made up of everyday equipment – tools, gloves, trash – that has come into contact with radiation. It is stored in steel containers. Intermediate waste is usually parts of the water-filtration system used in nuclear power plants, and is encased in concrete. Ten times a year, Sweden’s nuclear waste ship, the Sigyn, arrives in Forsmark and delivers containers and concrete cubes from around the country. Nordholm drove a white van into the facility, where water ran down the dark, granite walls.

She told me that when she started working for SKB, her family were the hardest people to win over to the repository idea. Even though there were already three nuclear reactors in the municipality, they drew the line at nuclear waste. “They had made their minds up: no, no, no,” she said. But Nordholm talked them round with one of the arguments that SKB uses most often: the imperative to deal with the waste problem now, and not to leave it for another generation. “What will I tell my grandson when I am 70 years old?’” Nordholm asked them. “I am really scared that he will put me through the walls for something that I could have done but didn’t do.”

But as we looked at Sweden’s low-level radioactive waste – white containers at the end of a long, strip-lit cavern – Nordholm explained that her persuading work was largely done. Accustomed to the presence of nuclear facilities, and reassured by the rigour of SKB’s geological investigations, most people in Östhammar were looking forward to the economic upsides of the repository. “People want to win,” she said. A poll taken by SKB in May showed that 79 per cent of people in Östhammar were either “for” or “totally for” the scheme. “Everyone says to me, ‘When can we come and get jobs?’”

The candidate site for a repository in Östhammar, next to the Forsmark nuclear power station
Nordholm took me to the site in Östhammar identified for a repository. Next to the power station, hundreds of metres below the ground, geologists have found a huge, unusually dry slab of granite, but on the surface there were rows of pale yellow prefabricated homes for temporary workers. Pine trees stood over everything and a few plastic wine glasses lay discarded in a bush. A thrush was hopping around. It was a modest, unshowy piece of earth but it was sad, nonetheless, to imagine it containing radioactive waste that would remain dangerous for the next one hundred millennia. I asked Nordholm if, really, she wouldn’t rather the stuff went somewhere else. She shook her head. “I don’t think it’s allowed to be so convenient that it is someone else’s problem,” she said. “I don’t like people who think like that.” What about waiting for a better technological solution than just burying it? “You know with scientists you can always find more solutions,” she said. “Sometimes you need to put down your feet and say that’s enough.”

Jacob Spangenberg, the mayor of Östhammar, said something similar as we sat in his garden that afternoon. A former agronomist who spent six years in Uganda, Spangenberg looks a little like John Malkovich, the actor. “It’s now or never,” he said. “We cannot continue for another five years.” Spangenberg was talking about the political process – after 15 years of coffee meetings, wildlife inventories and planning consultations, the politicians of Östhammar and Oskarshamn are worn out. “Maybe I’m fed up,” said Spangenberg, and as he spoke I was struck by the seemingly irreconcilable spans of time – human versus radioactive – on which the handling of high-level nuclear waste turns. Even if everything goes as quickly and as smoothly as possible, Sweden’s nuclear waste repository will not be built, filled and sealed for another 115 years. In reality, a further four generations of Spangenbergs and Nordholms are going to be involved.

The epic scale of the endeavour, however, has done nothing to dampen Östhammar’s enthusiasm. “It creates a mental bubble: the municipality stands or falls with this decision,” said Spangenberg. He said he was staying out of it. “I try not to get very excited, to keep calm all the time.”

Indeed, when I asked him about his personal attitude towards the scheme, he said: “I believe it is a good way forward for Östhammar to have the repository but that is not the same thing as saying I want it.” Instead, as a sceptic of nuclear power, Spangenberg said that the only thing that mattered was finding the safest possible place for the waste. “If it is not properly done, it is going to be so damn dangerous,” he said. I asked him if he would be secretly relieved if Östhammar lost out in the end. “I have not thought about that,” he said. “But it’s a good question. It’s an interesting question.”

Something of a rarity in Östhammar, Kenneth Gunnarsson (left) and Miles Goldstick and are critics of the proposed scheme
Spangenberg’s agnostic attitude has irritated both those in Östhammar who want the waste the most, and its very few opponents. Later I met two critics of the project, Miles Goldstick and Kenneth Gunnarsson. Goldstick and Gunnarsson are something of an odd couple. Goldstick works for Sweden’s anti-nuclear movement and has a PhD in ecology, while Gunnarsson is a graphic designer with more abstract, ethical concerns about the repository. “They call me the philosopher,” he said. But both are convinced that their fellow residents have not adequately weighed the risk they are about to take. “People don’t bother,” said Gunnarsson. “That is the problem. People are passive.”

But Goldstick and Gunnarsson are the minority in Östhammar. That evening I went to the small harbour of Oregrund, where, on the waterfront, I met a group of men drinking under a night sky that was ball gown blue. Among them was Hans-Allan Elisson, who turned out to own the small hotel where I was staying. Elisson told me that 90 per cent of his guests had some connection to the nuclear industry and that winning the waste competition too was vital for the community’s future. “You know it’s one of the most poisonous things in the world, but we need it,” he said. He was convinced, however, that Östhammar would lose to its bigger rival, Oskarshamn. Like many people I spoke to, Elisson thought Spangenberg wasn’t doing enough to close the deal. “I think the rocks are about the same,” he said. “But I think their politician guy is better than our guy.”

Oskarshamn was always favourite to win the repository. A manufacturing town 200 miles south of Stockholm, it is known for its powerboat races, ice hockey team and nuclear reactors. It has been called the Springfield of Sweden, after the town in The Simpsons. I travelled there the day after leaving Östhammar and found a town of apartment blocks and shopping streets. Oskarshamn has a Scania truck-cab factory, a proud municipal graveyard and two local newspapers. Huge cruise liners turn around in the port. Of the area’s 27,000 residents, 17,000 live in the town itself. But it is not Oskarshamn’s relative size or density that made it seem like a natural recipient of Sweden’s nuclear waste. It is because it is already there. Alongside the municipality’s three nuclear reactors, which stand on a forested peninsula north of the town, is Clab, Sweden’s interim high-level nuclear waste store. The cooling pools there currently hold around 5,000 tonnes of used uranium fuel rods in various states of heat and extreme radioactivity.

Since the 1990s, SKB has also used Oskarshamn to test its technology and its “KBS-3” method of storing high-level nuclear waste. There was a model of KBS-3 in every SKB office I went to: a cutaway of the giant, 5m copper canisters in which the spent fuel will be placed. The canisters are surrounded by rings of bentonite clay, which are designed to soak up any water in the bedrock and seal the canisters in their holes. The three layers – canister, clay and rock – are supposed to meet the statutory requirements of Sweden’s radiation laws: that whatever happens over the course of 100,000 years, through ice ages and comet strikes, those living closest to the repository will have no more than a one in a million chance of developing cancer because of the radioactive waste.

Canisters containing waste will be placed in clay-lined holes 450m underground

SKB has been testing the method since 1995 in the Äspö Hard Rock Laboratory, built hundreds of metres below a small island near Oskarshamn’s nuclear plant. Here I got a sense of what the eventual repository will be like. There was a dull smell of sulphur, and 400m below the surface, the bored-out passageways were perfectly round, the walls smooth to touch. At this depth, the horizontal forces in the earth’s crust are more powerful than the weight coming down from above. My SKB guide showed me the 22 long-term experiments taking place in Äspö, which are testing the movement of radioactive substances through the rock, in case a canister leaks, and the canisters’ ability to withstand heat and pressure. As we watched geologists tapping data into their laptops, she mentioned that a couple of engineers liked it so much they got married down here.

Peter Wretlund, the mayor of Oskarshamn, had none of the wariness of Spangenberg, his opposite number in Östhammar. “We are sitting right now in the most nuclear-power-friendly town in the world,” he said when we met in his office, overlooking the town’s harbour and battery factory. A Social Democrat and former union organiser, Wretlund speaks fragmented English and during our interview, which was translated by his assistant, he fiddled with a box of snuff. “It is about pride and identity,” he said of the repository. “This could be a world unique thing.”

Magnus Nilsson, an Oskarshamn resident, is keen to have the storage facility in his town, saying “we can take all the waste from the world”
In fact, the only thing that seemed to concern Wretlund was the lack of opposition to the scheme in Oskarshamn. “Why do they not activate more?” he asked. Formal opposition in Oskarshamn has been restricted to a single volunteer from MKG, Sweden’s national conservation movement. And when I walked around the town, people seemed keen to embody Oskarshamn’s reputation as a nuclear-friendly place. A schoolteacher told me how he liked to swim in the waste water from the nuclear plants, because it was warmer than the rest of the sea. “It is nice. It sounds strange. But it is nice.” And when I met a 25-year-old man called Magnus Nilsson, whose mother worked at the high-level waste store, he could see nothing but opportunity in making that temporary store permanent. “Send England’s shit here too and pay for it,” he said. “We can take all the waste from all the world and put it in Oskarshamn. Think about the money.”

In the end, the only person I encountered in Oskarshamn with doubts about nuclear waste was a 19-year-old music student called Elin who was leaving the town for good later that week. “I don’t understand the people here in some ways,” she said. “If you have grown up here you ask your parents about nuclear things and they are positive, so you don’t question it,” said Elin. “I think we should, shouldn’t we?”

The winning town was chosen just two days later. The announcement was made in Stockholm, on a day streaky with wind and summer rain. At noon, the two mayors, Wretlund and Spangenberg, were summoned to the Sigyn, the waste ship, a vast red and white vessel moored in the centre of the city, and told where the repository would be. The press conference was about an hour later.

SKB employees kept the few protesters on the cobbled quayside. Inside, the two mayors stood on either side of Thegerström, the SKB president. It was impossible to know who had won. Wretlund held a sheaf of papers and looked like he had something to say, while Spangenberg, in dark jeans and a pale grey jacket, appeared slightly pained, a member of the wedding party unsure of his role.

“The bedrock has spoken,” said Thegerström, and touched a button. There it was, on the screen: Östhammar. There was no applause, just a quickening of attention towards Spangenberg, who stood holding his hands tight together. Wretlund smiled, said a few words and started to slide to the edge of the stage. Spangenberg offered him a glass of water and a handshake and started to speak. The television crews surged towards him.

When Wretlund had a spare moment we walked out into the open air. He breathed in deeply. “I’m okay,” he said. He looked awful. “I’m okay.” He opened his box of snuff. I asked him how the people Oskarshamn would take the news. “I don’t know,” he said.

By the time Spangenberg had finished talking to the cameras, the sun was out, but the wind was cold. He wore a black anorak and looked like a tourist. Photographers were still milling around. He said he felt sorry for Wretlund and Oskarshamn. “They were convinced that they were able to get it by their own efforts,” he said.

He looked neither happy nor sad. I didn’t know what to say to him. “I don’t know what to say either,” he said, and looked out at the view. Then I asked him if he was ready for his new life as the mayor of high-level nuclear waste and Spangenberg laughed loudly. “Oh no,” he said. “I hope I will be recognised for something different.” And then someone came up and took his picture.

Sam Knight is a regular contributor to FT Weekend Magazine

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.

http://www.france24.com/en/20090627-environment-burying-nuclear-waste-permanent-

Monday 29 June 2009
By Eve IRVINE (text)

This week : Burying nuclear waste…forever

After years of research Sweden is poised to create the world’s first ever permanent storage site for nuclear waste.

ENVIRONMENT starts 450 meters underground, at the heart of a laboratory that since the 1990s has been testing procedures that should lead to the world’s first ever-permanent storage site for nuclear waste. Before taking a look at renewable energy in the country that leads the way in such energy ressources.

At Oskharsham in the south of the country a 4km long site has developed a way of burying the toxic waste. Once buried it is laid to rest for 100,000 years, after which time the radiation in it is deemed to be equal to that naturally found in uranium. The final site will be situation to the north of Stockholm. In fact two towns spent months fighting to have the nuclear waste site based in their countryside.

Earlier this year Sweden overturned a 30 -year ban on nuclear power. It did so to further secure its energy supply and also because nuclear power does not emit C02 it is thus considered an option in the fight against global warming. Sweden remains one of the world leaders in terms of renewable energy and has set itself the ambitious target of having 50% of its energy needs satisfied by such means by 2020. That is double the target set in other European states.

In Stockholm, all of the cities buses are run on ethanol. The city switched over to this in 1990, in a bid to reduce pollution. At first, just 30 ethanol-fueled buses were added to the fleet for a three-year test period. This proved positive and 20 years later Sweden has continued to be innovative with energy in its transport. Central Station sees hundreds of people pass through its corridors every day and the body heat they generate is now being used to heat the office block next door.

Finally ENVIRONMENT spends the evening at a climate party, inspired by the Tupperware style party’s of years gone by this one tries to sell people ways in which the can help save the planet. Organizers feel that the personal approach is much more effective and that people will be more inclined to act if a friend or colleague rather than a politician or the media are giving them the message.

Nuclear waste to be stored north of Stockholm

National News | 2009-06-03

The terminal storage of nuclear waste will be located in the municipality Östhammar about 100 kilometers north of Stockholm (see map). 12 000 tones of nuclear waste will be stored 500 meters below the surface. The attempts to find the best location has been going on for three decades.

The terminal storage is expected to create many jobs and investments. Seven hundred jobs during the eight years of construction (2014-2022) and a boost for business in the region in a longer term are the anticipations. But there have also been security concerns. One of the reasons why Östhammar was picked was the solid bedrock. The waste will however be disposed there for 100 000 years, quit a long time. At least that has been the intention until recently.

Mats Jonsson, professor in nuclear chemistry at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm (KTH) says to Svenska Dagbladet:

-Originally the purpose with terminal storage was that it really should be terminal. But with this solution in Östhammar, it will be possible to access the radioactive material in the future if one has developed technology for a better why of storing it or for extracting energy from it.

The top politicians in Östhammar were happy today, while the emotions in Oskarhamn, their main rival about the location, were lower. Both cities have seen a potential in terms of new jobs.

Some inhabitants in Östhammar have wanted a local referendum to see whether people are ready to accept the potential security risks for new jobs. The Mayor of Östhammar, Jacob Spangenberg says however to Dagens Nyheter that this is not an issue suited for a referendum since it is a very complex issue

Tommie Ullman

tommie.ullman@stockholmnews.com

Forsmark for Swedish nuclear waste

03 June 2009

The world's first permanent disposal site for used nuclear fuel will be at Forsmark, Sweden's SKB announced today.

The decision was announced by SKB President, Claes Thegerström today after a board meeting yesterday. Forsmark, in the municipality of Östhammar, was selected in preference to Laxemar in the Oskarshamn municipality after a process of investigation and engagement that has lasted since 2002.

Site works towards the underground facility could begin in 2013, with full construction starting in 2015 and operation in 2023. This single facility, using only 15 hectares above ground, would hold all of the high-level radioactive waste from the nuclear power reactors that provide about 45% of Sweden's electricity. SKB will apply to nuclear safety regulators for premission to build in around one year's time.

The repository is designed to isolate the wastes for the 100,000 years it will take until their levels of radiation return to the original low levels of natural uranium. Used nuclear fuel assemblies are to be packed in cast iron baskets within thick copper canisters and packed in clay almost 500 metres below gound in a continguous section of igneous rock. At that level, groundwater movement is so slow that the wastes could never affect life at the surface. The method, known as KBS-3, was selected in 1983.

The competition to host the site was hard fought, with both communities taking keen interest - both municipalities already have nuclear facilities. Forsmark already hosts a nuclear power plant and the final repository for short-lived radioactive waste, but its selection for this facility comes as something of a surprise. The used fuel for disposition at the CLAB interim store is in the Oskarshamn municipality near Laxemar, as will be the encapsulation plant. Also in that region is the Äspö hard rock laboratory where much of the practical work to demonstrate the disposal method has taken place.

Thegerstrom said that the rock bodies beneath Forsmark were drier and with fewer cracks than at Laxemar and this would improve long-term safety. In addition, a respository at Forsmark could be designed to take up less space than one at Laxemar, meaning an easier construction job in part because of the smaller amount of rock to handle and tunnel space to backfill. At the peak of construction, 30 to 40 trucks per day will carry excavated rock from the site.

In addition to the benefits that would come with such a long-lasting engineering project, Forsmark's Östhammar municipality will also receive about 25% of a SEK2 billion ($240 million) financial package. The losing region, Oskarshamn, will take the rest of the package.

Sweden picks site for nuclear dump

Associated Press, 06.03.09, 11:12 AM EDT

The company in charge of managing Sweden's nuclear waste on Wednesday named a site north of Stockholm as the planned repository for spent fuel from the country's atomic power plants.

The Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management ( WMI - news - people ) Company said it selected the site near the Forsmark nuclear plant, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) from Stockholm, after two decades of research.

"The Forsmark site offers rock at the repository level which is dry and has few fractures. These properties are of a major significance for long-term safety," the company said in a statement.

If approved by Swedish authorities, the site would become the final repository for radioactive waste that is currently stored in an interim facility.

The new storage facility would be excavated to a depth of about 1,600 feet (500 meters), the company said.

Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren said only Swedish nuclear waste would be stored at the site. "I don't think there will be any requests because the other countries know our stance," he told Swedish news agency TT.

The Swedish government decided earlier this year to scrap a three-decade ban on building new nuclear reactors, citing a lack of alternative sources of energy. The country's 10 operational nuclear reactors generate about half of Sweden's electricity production.

Sweden selects site

Published: 04 June 2009 01:14 PM
Source: The Engineer Online
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The Swedish nuclear fuel and waste-management company SKB has selected Forsmark as the site where the final repository for Sweden's spent nuclear-fuel will be built.

Once completed, all spent nuclear-fuel from Swedish nuclear power-plants will be disposed of in the repository, at a depth of nearly 500m.

SKB said that the Forsmark repository will require less space than a repository in Laxemar, an alternative site that was under consideration.

The company will now prepare an environmental-impact assessment and a safety analysis of the repository, which will be reviewed by the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority and the Swedish Environmental Court.

SKB has already applied for a building permit to develop an encapsulation plant adjacent to its existing interim storage facility in Oskarshamn.

That facility will encapsulate the spent nuclear fuel before it is transported to the final repository.

The selection of the Forsmark site is the result of almost 20 years' work, during which SKB conducted surveys throughout Sweden and feasibility studies in eight of the country's municipalities.

The Forsmark facility is expected to accept the first deliveries of spent nuclear-fuel by about 2023.

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Östhammar wins bid to store nuclear waste

Published: 3 Jun 09 13:46 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/19852/20090603/

Dictionary tool Double click on a word to get a translation

The eastern Swedish town of Östhammar has seen off rival bidder Oskarshamn and secured a lucrative deal to store nuclear waste for the next 100,000 years, the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company (SKB) said in a statement on Wednesday.
Plans call for all the spent nuclear fuel from Swedish nuclear power plants to be deposited in a repository at a depth of nearly 500 metres underground in the crystalline bedrock.

Construction on the cutting-edge site could begin in 2016 and the site could be inaugurated in 2022 or 2024, according to SKB.

The Östhammar site is located near the Forsmark nuclear facility and was chosen in part because rock at the level where the spent nuclear fuel will be stored is dry and relatively free of fractures.

“The selection of a site is a milestone for the Swedish nuclear waste programme. We see a clear advantage for Forsmark concerning long-term safety”, said SKB President Claes Thegerström in a statement.

In addition, placing the underground storage facility at Forsmark will require less space, meaning less rock will need to be excavated.

Nuclear power has been around for decades and currently accounts for 14 percent of the world's electricity production. But while there are interim storage facilities for high-level nuclear waste, no permanent storage solution exists yet.

Sweden, Finland and France all aim to have final repositories in place by 2030.

The Swedish technique consists of storing two tonnes of spent fuel in copper-coated canisters that weigh 25 tonnes each.

Each canister is welded shut using a special technique and then mechanically deposited in a tunnel in the repository.

A buffer of bentonite clay, a volcanic ash that when mixed with water swells to provide a watertight barrier and protect against earthquakes, is then injected to fill the hole in the rock.

The next step for SKB is to begin the process of applying for permits to be reviewed by the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority and the Environmental Court.

"We are now focusing our work on putting together the necessary documentation to submit a licence application for constructing a safe repository for nuclear fuel in Forsmark," said Thegerström.

The company expects to have its applications submitted sometime in 2010.

High-level nuclear waste from Sweden's 10 reactors has since 1985 been stored at a central interim storage facility in Oskarshamn.

After several decades of interim storage, about one percent of the radioactivity remains. But only after 100,000 years will the radioactivity decline to the level the uranium ore had when it was mined.

In Sweden, where 45 percent of electricity production comes from nuclear power, the government in February reversed a decision to phase out the country's 10 nuclear reactors.

Instead, they can now be replaced at the end of their life spans as part of an ambitious new climate programme.

Sweden poised to bury nuclear waste for 100,000 yrs

By Pia Ohlin

OSKARSHAMN, Sweden (AFP) The elevator takes 90 seconds to descend half a kilometre underground. The cage door opens onto a dark, damp tunnel deep in the Swedish rock, where groundwater trickles down the granite walls as trucks rumble by.

Here, at the Aespoe Hard Rock Laboratory in the southeastern Swedish town of Oskarshamn, researchers are using an underground maze of four kilometres (2.5 miles) of tunnels to test methods to enable Sweden to become the first country in the world to bury spent nuclear fuel for hundreds of thousands of years.

The Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company (SKB), an independent company owned by nuclear power plant operators, is due to select a site sometime in June for its final repository for high-level spent nuclear fuel from Sweden's 10 reactors.

"If all goes as planned, construction could begin in 2016 and the first canister could be deposited in the repository in 2022 or 2024," SKB spokesman Jimmy Larsson-Hagberg told AFP.

And as climate concerns and opposition to fossil fuels prompt numerous countries to re-think their aversion to nuclear power, the need for final repositories is growing, experts say.

In Sweden, where 45 percent of electricity production comes from nuclear power, the government in February reversed a decision to phase out the country's 10 nuclear reactors.

Instead, they can now be replaced at the end of their life spans as part of an ambitious new climate programme.

While many countries have to cope with angry shouts of "not in my backyard" when searching for a location to store radioactive waste, the two eastern Swedish towns of Oskarshamn and Oesthammar, both already home to nuclear power plants, are competing to welcome the spent fuel.

Around 80 percent of people in the two municipalities are in favour of hosting the site.

Both towns have open facilities where residents, school classes, and foreign visitors can tour the premises to see how nuclear waste is currently being handled.

Experts say the open sites and frequent dialogue with locals have led to broad acceptance for the project, which will attract billions of dollars of investments and create new jobs.

"Local acceptance is a must for SKB in its decision-making process," SKB guide Kajsa Engholm said.

High-level nuclear waste from Sweden's reactors has since 1985 been stored at a central interim storage facility (CLAB) in Oskarshamn. Waste from across the country is transported by a specially-equipped ship to CLAB.

CLAB currently has 4,993 tonnes of high-level spent fuel stored, and can take in a maximum of 10,000 tonnes, guide Britta Freudenthal told AFP, stressing the need for a permanent storage site within 30 to 40 years.

In Oskarshamn, where the country's first nuclear reactor opened in 1972 and which is home to three reactors, local officials have lobbied hard for the final repository.

"We have had interim storage of spent fuel in Oskarshamn since 1985. People here want a final solution," Lars Blomberg, a member of Oskarhamn's city council, explained.

SKB completed construction on the Aespoe Hard Rock Laboratory in 1995, and has since then tested various methods of storing canisters in the 1.8 billion-year-old granite bedrock.

"We think of things from a geological perspective, where 100,000 years is nothing compared to 1.8 billion years," Engholm says as she leads a group of visitors in hard hats through one of the dimly-lit tunnels.

The massive laboratory was built solely for test purposes and will not be used for the final repository. But it will continue as a test site in the future.

Sweden, Finland and France all aim to have final repositories in place by 2030.

"The generations that created the waste have a responsibility to take care of it," Engholm said.

The Swedish technique consists of storing two tonnes of spent fuel in copper-coated canisters that weigh 25 tonnes each.

Each canister is welded shut using a special technique and then mechanically deposited in a tunnel in the repository.

A buffer of bentonite clay, a volcanic ash that when mixed with water swells to provide a watertight barrier and protect against earthquakes, is then injected to fill the hole in the rock.

"The canisters are buried several metres apart so the rock can absorb the heat generated by the radioactive materials in each copper canister," Engholm explains.

Once a tunnel in the repository is full, the tunnel is filled in with a mixture of bentonite and rock.

Six empty test canisters have already been buried at Aespoe, with electric heaters simulating the heat generated by radioactive materials.

Regular tests are conducted to see how the materials react to temperature, water pressure, humidity and microbes.

Each copper canister of spent fuel can hold the equivalent of one year's electricity consumption for Sweden's third-biggest city of Malmoe with 286,000 inhabitants.

The chosen site will be protected against terrorist attacks, SKB said, refusing to disclose details of the security measures.

Opposition to the project has so far been limited.

But Johan Swahn, director of the Swedish NGO Office for Nuclear Waste Review, is one of the most vehement critics.

He cited a Swedish scientific study from 2007 that suggested the copper canisters could corrode after a few hundred or a thousand years, and thereby pose a major safety hazard.

"There is increasing awareness that the chosen method lacks information about how copper corrosion and bentonite clay work in that kind of heat over thousands of years," Swahn told AFP.

"If the canisters begin to rust right away, the radioactive waste could reach the surface in 50 to 100 years at the Oskarshamn site," he said.

SKB has rejected the argument, saying no other studies have been able to confirm the hypothesis that copper can corrode without oxygen.

"And even if the copper were to corrode, the containers will not leak according to our safety assessment," Larsson-Hagberg stressed.

The cost of the project is estimated at 20 to 25 billion kronor (2.5 to 3.2 billion dollars, 1.9 to 2.4 billion euros), funded entirely by the nuclear industry.

Once SKB has chosen its site it will submit two applications to Swedish environmental and nuclear authorities. If both give the thumbs up, the government will then take a decision, probably around 2014.

Sweden claims nuclear waste storage safe

April 24, 2009
edie.net (Environmental Data Interactive Exchange)

As Sweden debates where to store spent fuel from its nuclear reactors, scientific evidence has emerged to suggest that even if the three protective barriers that surround it are breached, there will be no radioactive contamination of groundwater.

Sweden plans to protect its nuclear waste with a shell of copper reinforced with iron encased in clay and buried in surrounded by 500m of granite bedrock.

Chemical reactions that take place this deep within the earth means that, should all three barriers be breached, the interaction between the iron and groundwater would create large amounts of hydrogen which, under the naturally high pressures 500m below the surface, would prevent the uranium from dissolving.

Researcher Patrik Fors has been conducting long-term experiments on behalf of SKB, the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company, and claims that these show there is no risk of contamination for tens of thousands of years, when the levels of radiation are so low they will pose no environmental threat.

"The hydrogen effect was discovered in 2000," he said.

"It's a powerful effect that was not factored in when plans for permanent storage began to be forged, and now I have shown that it's even more powerful than was previously thought."

He has carried out laboratory trials on three types of spent fuel and with all three hydrogen was shown to protect the fuel from being dissolved in the water, even though the highly radioactive fuels create a corrosive environment in the water as a result of their radiation.

The reason for the protective effect is that the hydrogen prevents the uranium from oxidizing and converting to liquid form.

The hydrogen makes the oxidized uranium that already exists as a liquid in the water shift to a solid state.

The outcome was that the amount of uranium found dissolved in the water, after experiments lasting several years, had lower than the naturally occuring levels in Swedish groundwater.

"The hydrogen effect will prevent the dissolution of nuclear fuel until the fuel's radioactivity is so low that it need no longer be considered a hazard," said Fors.

Sam Bond

As posted at http://www.edie.net/news/news_story.asp?id=16339&channel=0&title=Sweden+claims+nuclear+waste+storage+safe

The Swedish NGO Office for Nuclear Waste Review (MKG)
The Swedish NGO Office for Nuclear Waste Review (MKG) is an organisation established in 2004 by the Swedish environmental movement. Within the coming years an application for the construction of a Swedish geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel will be made by the nuclear industry. MKG will participate in the consultation process as a critical voice. The goal of the organisation is to assure that the method and location for the disposition of Swedish nuclear waste meets the highest long-term standards for health and environment.

The Swedish Nuclear Waste Management process
This is a case study from a web site which presents the results of the COWAM European Concerted Action (2000-2003) within the EC 5th Framework Programme. This project was at the origin of COWAM network, and delivered first conclusions and recommendations (Recommendation Groups' report and Final synthesis report) to improve the quality of decision-making processes in nuclear waste management from a local perspective. The network comprises delegates from local communities (elected representatives, NGOs, and other local organisations), as well as representatives from the industry, regulators and experts. From 2004 the network carries on its activities under the COWAM 2 project in the EC6 th Framework Programme.