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70-596: After the Finnish Nuclear Energy Act was amended in 1994 to specify that all nuclear waste produced in Finland must be disposed of in Finland, Olkiluoto was selected in 2000 as the site for a long-term underground storage facility for Finland's spent nuclear fuel. The facility, named "Onkalo" (meaning "small cave" or "cavity") is being built in the granite bedrock at the Olkiluoto site, about five kilometers from

140-406: A millennia-long nuclear waste warning message in the form of a folk song about genetically engineered cats. Matheny wrote it to be "so catchy and annoying that it might be handed down from generation to generation over a span of 10,000 years". In 2020, Matheny and Christian Holden from The Hotelier started an artist-managed record label cooperative known as Dreams of Field Recordings. Matheny

210-527: A currently uneconomic prospect. A summary of the amounts of radioactive waste and management approaches for most developed countries are presented and reviewed periodically as part of a joint convention of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). A quantity of radioactive waste typically consists of a number of radionuclides , which are unstable isotopes of elements that undergo decay and thereby emit ionizing radiation , which

280-517: A developing organism such as a fetus is irradiated, it is possible a birth defect may be induced, but it is unlikely this defect will be in a gamete or a gamete-forming cell . The incidence of radiation-induced mutations in humans is small, as in most mammals, because of natural cellular-repair mechanisms, many just now coming to light. These mechanisms range from DNA, mRNA and protein repair, to internal lysosomic digestion of defective proteins, and even induced cell suicide—apoptosis Depending on

350-554: A general rule, short-lived waste (mainly non-fuel materials from reactors) is buried in shallow repositories, while long-lived waste (from fuel and fuel reprocessing) is deposited in geological repository. Regulations in the United States do not define this category of waste; the term is used in Europe and elsewhere. ILW makes up 6% of all radioactive waste volume in the UK. High-level waste (HLW)

420-492: A half-life that can stretch to as long as 24,000 years. The amount of HLW worldwide is increasing by about 12,000 tonnes per year. A 1000- megawatt nuclear power plant produces about 27 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel (unreprocessed) every year. For comparison, the amount of ash produced by coal power plants in the United States is estimated at 130,000,000 t per year and fly ash is estimated to release 100 times more radiation than an equivalent nuclear power plant. In 2010, it

490-438: A range of applications, such as oil well logging. Substances containing natural radioactivity are known as NORM (naturally occurring radioactive material). After human processing that exposes or concentrates this natural radioactivity (such as mining bringing coal to the surface or burning it to produce concentrated ash), it becomes technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material (TENORM). Much of this waste

560-504: A reactor. At that point, the fuel has to be replaced in the reactor with fresh fuel, even though there is still a substantial quantity of uranium-235 and plutonium present. In the United States, this used fuel is usually "stored", while in other countries such as Russia, the United Kingdom, France, Japan, and India, the fuel is reprocessed to remove the fission products, and the fuel can then be re-used. The fission products removed from

630-405: A result of the processing or consumption of coal, oil, and gas, and some minerals, as discussed below. Waste from the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle is usually alpha-emitting waste from the extraction of uranium. It often contains radium and its decay products. Uranium dioxide (UO 2 ) concentrate from mining is a thousand or so times as radioactive as the granite used in buildings. It

700-426: A similar way, the alpha emitting actinides and radium are considered very harmful as they tend to have long biological half-lives and their radiation has a high relative biological effectiveness , making it far more damaging to tissues per amount of energy deposited. Because of such differences, the rules determining biological injury differ widely according to the radioisotope, time of exposure, and sometimes also

770-446: A stable state but rather to radioactive decay products within a decay chain before ultimately reaching a stable state. Exposure to radioactive waste may cause health impacts due to ionizing radiation exposure. In humans, a dose of 1 sievert carries a 5.5% risk of developing cancer, and regulatory agencies assume the risk is linearly proportional to dose even for low doses. Ionizing radiation can cause deletions in chromosomes. If

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840-501: A storage area, and the enrichment methods required have high capital costs. Pu-239 decays to U-235 which is suitable for weapons and which has a very long half-life (roughly 10 years). Thus plutonium may decay and leave uranium-235. However, modern reactors are only moderately enriched with U-235 relative to U-238, so the U-238 continues to serve as a denaturation agent for any U-235 produced by plutonium decay. One solution to this problem

910-505: Is alpha particle -emitting matter from the decay chains of uranium and thorium. The main source of radiation in the human body is potassium -40 ( K ), typically 17 milligrams in the body at a time and 0.4 milligrams/day intake. Most rocks, especially granite , have a low level of radioactivity due to the potassium-40, thorium and uranium contained. Usually ranging from 1 millisievert (mSv) to 13 mSv annually depending on location, average radiation exposure from natural radioisotopes

980-434: Is reactor-grade plutonium . In addition to plutonium-239 , which is highly suitable for building nuclear weapons, it contains large amounts of undesirable contaminants: plutonium-240 , plutonium-241 , and plutonium-238 . These isotopes are extremely difficult to separate, and more cost-effective ways of obtaining fissile material exist (e.g., uranium enrichment or dedicated plutonium production reactors). High-level waste

1050-482: Is 2.0 mSv per person a year worldwide. This makes up the majority of typical total dosage (with mean annual exposure from other sources amounting to 0.6 mSv from medical tests averaged over the whole populace, 0.4 mSv from cosmic rays , 0.005 mSv from the legacy of past atmospheric nuclear testing, 0.005 mSv occupational exposure, 0.002 mSv from the Chernobyl disaster , and 0.0002 mSv from

1120-496: Is a fertile material that can undergo a neutron capture reaction and two beta minus decays, resulting in the production of fissile U-233 . The SNF of a cycle with thorium will contain U-233. Its radioactive decay will strongly influence the long-term activity curve of the SNF for around a million years. A comparison of the activity associated to U-233 for three different SNF types can be seen in

1190-406: Is a fissile material used in nuclear bombs, plus some material with much higher specific activities, such as Pu-238 or Po. In the past the neutron trigger for an atomic bomb tended to be beryllium and a high activity alpha emitter such as polonium ; an alternative to polonium is Pu-238 . For reasons of national security, details of the design of modern nuclear bombs are normally not released to

1260-424: Is a gamma emitter (increasing external-exposure to workers) and is an alpha emitter which can cause the generation of heat . The plutonium could be separated from the americium by several different processes; these would include pyrochemical processes and aqueous/organic solvent extraction . A truncated PUREX type extraction process would be one possible method of making the separation. Naturally occurring uranium

1330-557: Is an American singer and songwriter. Born in Louisville , Kentucky in 1979, Matheny got his start in music when he was given a Casio SK-1 by his grandparents at age nine, and recorded his first album on a Tascam four-track before the age of 20. Matheny tours across the United States regularly and performs around the world as well, including tours in Mexico , Canada , Australia ,

1400-611: Is full of highly radioactive fission products , most of which are relatively short-lived. This is a concern since if the waste is stored, perhaps in deep geological storage, over many years the fission products decay, decreasing the radioactivity of the waste and making the plutonium easier to access. The undesirable contaminant Pu-240 decays faster than the Pu-239, and thus the quality of the bomb material increases with time (although its quantity decreases during that time as well). Thus, some have argued, as time passes, these deep storage areas have

1470-516: Is generated from hospitals and industry, as well as the nuclear fuel cycle . Low-level wastes include paper, rags, tools, clothing, filters, and other materials which contain small amounts of mostly short-lived radioactivity. Materials that originate from any region of an Active Area are commonly designated as LLW as a precautionary measure even if there is only a remote possibility of being contaminated with radioactive materials. Such LLW typically exhibits no higher radioactivity than one would expect from

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1540-477: Is harmful to humans and the environment. Different isotopes emit different types and levels of radiation, which last for different periods of time. The radioactivity of all radioactive waste weakens with time. All radionuclides contained in the waste have a half-life —the time it takes for half of the atoms to decay into another nuclide . Eventually, all radioactive waste decays into non-radioactive elements (i.e., stable nuclides ). Since radioactive decay follows

1610-560: Is highly radioactive and hot due to decay heat, thus requiring cooling and shielding. In nuclear reprocessing plants, about 96% of spent nuclear fuel is recycled back into uranium-based and mixed-oxide (MOX) fuels . The residual 4% is minor actinides and fission products , the latter of which are a mixture of stable and quickly decaying (most likely already having decayed in the spent fuel pool ) elements, medium lived fission products such as strontium-90 and caesium-137 and finally seven long-lived fission products with half lives in

1680-429: Is important to distinguish the processing of uranium to make fuel from the reprocessing of used fuel. Used fuel contains the highly radioactive products of fission (see high-level waste below). Many of these are neutron absorbers, called neutron poisons in this context. These eventually build up to a level where they absorb so many neutrons that the chain reaction stops, even with the control rods completely removed from

1750-591: Is not fissile because it contains 99.3% of U-238 and only 0.7% of U-235. Due to historic activities typically related to the radium industry, uranium mining, and military programs, numerous sites contain or are contaminated with radioactivity. In the United States alone, the Department of Energy (DOE) states there are "millions of gallons of radioactive waste" as well as "thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel and material" and also "huge quantities of contaminated soil and water." Despite copious quantities of waste, in 2007,

1820-423: Is produced by nuclear reactors and the reprocessing of nuclear fuel. The exact definition of HLW differs internationally. After a nuclear fuel rod serves one fuel cycle and is removed from the core, it is considered HLW. Spent fuel rods contain mostly uranium with fission products and transuranic elements generated in the reactor core . Spent fuel is highly radioactive and often hot. HLW accounts for over 95% of

1890-520: Is refined from yellowcake (U 3 O 8 ), then converted to uranium hexafluoride gas (UF 6 ). As a gas, it undergoes enrichment to increase the U-235 content from 0.7% to about 4.4% (LEU). It is then turned into a hard ceramic oxide (UO 2 ) for assembly as reactor fuel elements. The main by-product of enrichment is depleted uranium (DU), principally the U-238 isotope, with a U-235 content of ~0.3%. It

1960-422: Is regulated by government agencies in order to protect human health and the environment. Radioactive waste is broadly classified into 3 categories: low-level waste (LLW), such as paper, rags, tools, clothing, which contain small amounts of mostly short-lived radioactivity; intermediate-level waste (ILW), which contains higher amounts of radioactivity and requires some shielding; and high-level waste (HLW), which

2030-432: Is stored, either as UF 6 or as U 3 O 8 . Some is used in applications where its extremely high density makes it valuable such as anti-tank shells , and on at least one occasion even a sailboat keel . It is also used with plutonium for making mixed oxide fuel (MOX) and to dilute, or downblend , highly enriched uranium from weapons stockpiles which is now being redirected to become reactor fuel. The back-end of

2100-426: Is to recycle the plutonium and use it as a fuel e.g. in fast reactors . In pyrometallurgical fast reactors , the separated plutonium and uranium are contaminated by actinides and cannot be used for nuclear weapons. Waste from nuclear weapons decommissioning is unlikely to contain much beta or gamma activity other than tritium and americium . It is more likely to contain alpha-emitting actinides such as Pu-239 which

2170-469: The PUREX -process disposes of them as waste together with the fission products. The waste is subsequently converted into a glass-like ceramic for storage in a deep geological repository . The time radioactive waste must be stored depends on the type of waste and radioactive isotopes it contains. Short-term approaches to radioactive waste storage have been segregation and storage on the surface or near-surface of

Onkalo spent nuclear fuel repository - Misplaced Pages Continue

2240-517: The United Kingdom , and the European Union . In a self-described attempt to "address the diminishing utility of physical copies of music and the expanding role of marketing in the experience of art", Matheny often hides or buries one-off physical copies and associated visual artwork of b-sides at GPS coordinates and posts them online as a part of a geocaching game to unlock MP3 copies of

2310-712: The DOE has successfully completed cleanup, or at least closure, of several sites. Radioactive medical waste tends to contain beta particle and gamma ray emitters. It can be divided into two main classes. In diagnostic nuclear medicine a number of short-lived gamma emitters such as technetium-99m are used. Many of these can be disposed of by leaving it to decay for a short time before disposal as normal waste. Other isotopes used in medicine, with half-lives in parentheses, include: Industrial source waste can contain alpha, beta , neutron or gamma emitters. Gamma emitters are used in radiography while neutron emitting sources are used in

2380-569: The DOE stated a goal of cleaning all presently contaminated sites successfully by 2025. The Fernald , Ohio site for example had "31 million pounds of uranium product", "2.5 billion pounds of waste", "2.75 million cubic yards of contaminated soil and debris", and a "223 acre portion of the underlying Great Miami Aquifer had uranium levels above drinking standards." The United States has at least 108 sites designated as areas that are contaminated and unusable, sometimes many thousands of acres. The DOE wishes to clean or mitigate many or all by 2025, using

2450-542: The MOX fuel results in a lower activity in region 3 of the figure at the bottom right, whereas for RGPu and WGPu the curve is maintained higher due to the presence of U-233 that has not fully decayed. Nuclear reprocessing can remove the actinides from the spent fuel so they can be used or destroyed (see Long-lived fission product § Actinides ). Since uranium and plutonium are nuclear weapons materials, there are proliferation concerns. Ordinarily (in spent nuclear fuel), plutonium

2520-408: The Pu-239; due to the relatively long half-life of these Pu isotopes, these wastes from radioactive decay of bomb core material would be very small, and in any case, far less dangerous (even in terms of simple radioactivity) than the Pu-239 itself. The beta decay of Pu-241 forms Am-241 ; the in-growth of americium is likely to be a greater problem than the decay of Pu-239 and Pu-240 as the americium

2590-1087: The Radioactive Waste Safety Standards (RADWASS), also plays a significant role. The proportion of various types of waste generated in the UK: Uranium tailings are waste by-product materials left over from the rough processing of uranium-bearing ore . They are not significantly radioactive. Mill tailings are sometimes referred to as 11(e)2 wastes , from the section of the US Atomic Energy Act of 1946 that defines them. Uranium mill tailings typically also contain chemically hazardous heavy metal such as lead and arsenic . Vast mounds of uranium mill tailings are left at many old mining sites, especially in Colorado , New Mexico , and Utah . Although mill tailings are not very radioactive, they have long half-lives. Mill tailings often contain radium, thorium and trace amounts of uranium. Low-level waste (LLW)

2660-636: The album art for the related song "10,000-Year Earworm to Discourage Resettlement Near Nuclear Waste Repositories". 61°14′06″N 21°28′56″E  /  61.23513°N 21.4821°E  / 61.23513; 21.4821  ( Onkalo entrance ) Radioactive waste Radioactive waste is a type of hazardous waste that contains radioactive material . Radioactive waste is a result of many activities, including nuclear medicine , nuclear research , nuclear power generation, nuclear decommissioning , rare-earth mining, and nuclear weapons reprocessing. The storage and disposal of radioactive waste

2730-591: The alleged corrosion process does not exist, and that the initial experiments were not correctly executed and/or the wrong conclusions were drawn. In 2019, another study concluded that radiation effects should not significantly damage the canisters after 100,000 years. The spent nuclear fuel has 94% of the original energy content. Spent nuclear fuel is a valuable resource that can be utilized in breeder reactors, and several other components also have useful applications. The fissile Plutonium-239 content could contribute to humanity's conversion to clean and reliable energy into

2800-639: The ash content of 'dirty' coals. The more active ash minerals become concentrated in the fly ash precisely because they do not burn well. The radioactivity of fly ash is about the same as black shale and is less than phosphate rocks, but is more of a concern because a small amount of the fly ash ends up in the atmosphere where it can be inhaled. According to U.S. National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP) reports, population exposure from 1000-MWe power plants amounts to 490 person-rem/year for coal power plants, 100 times as great as nuclear power plants (4.8 person-rem/year). The exposure from

2870-504: The audio. For the release of the 2011 Emperor X album Western Teleport , 41 "translucent purple audio cassettes " were buried across North America , many of which remain undiscovered. This received a feature on NPR 's " Weekend Edition " program. In 2014, Matheny was commissioned by 99% Invisible to write a song titled " 10,000-Year Earworm to Discourage Settlement Near Nuclear Waste Repositories (Don't Change Color, Kitty) " based on Françoise Bastide and Paolo Fabbri 's concept of

Onkalo spent nuclear fuel repository - Misplaced Pages Continue

2940-448: The back end of the fuel cycle is especially relevant when designing a complete waste management plan for SNF. When looking at long-term radioactive decay, the actinides in the SNF have a significant influence due to their characteristically long half-lives. Depending on what a nuclear reactor is fueled with, the actinide composition in the SNF will be different. An example of this effect is the use of nuclear fuels with thorium . Th-232

3010-452: The complete nuclear fuel cycle from mining to waste disposal is 136 person-rem/year; the corresponding value for coal use from mining to waste disposal is "probably unknown". Residues from the oil and gas industry often contain radium and its decay products. The sulfate scale from an oil well can be radium rich, while the water, oil, and gas from a well often contain radon . The radon decays to form solid radioisotopes which form coatings on

3080-425: The decay mode and the pharmacokinetics of an element (how the body processes it and how quickly), the threat due to exposure to a given activity of a radioisotope will differ. For instance, iodine-131 is a short-lived beta and gamma emitter, but because it concentrates in the thyroid gland, it is more able to cause injury than caesium -137 which, being water soluble , is rapidly excreted through urine. In

3150-494: The decision in May 2001. Posiva started construction of the site in 2004. The Finnish government issued the company a licence for constructing the final disposal facility on 12 November 2015. The site began testing and trials in August 2024, where empty fuel canisters were placed inside the burial chambers. The facility was constructed by and will be operated by Posiva , a company owned by

3220-399: The distant future. American anthropologist Vincent Ialenti has written a book Deep Time Reckoning (2020) that explores how Onkalo repository "safety case" experts envisioned distant future ecosystems and reflected on the limits of human knowledge. His book is based on 32 months of in-person fieldwork in Finland. American singer and songwriter Emperor X used a sketch of the facility as

3290-604: The earth. Burial in a deep geological repository is a favored solution for long-term storage of high-level waste, while re-use and transmutation are favored solutions for reducing the HLW inventory. Boundaries to recycling of spent nuclear fuel are regulatory and economic as well as the issue of radioactive contamination if chemical separation processes cannot achieve a very high purity. Furthermore, elements may be present in both useful and troublesome isotopes, which would require costly and energy intensive isotope separation for their use –

3360-411: The figure on the top right. The burnt fuels are thorium with reactor-grade plutonium (RGPu), thorium with weapons-grade plutonium (WGPu), and Mixed oxide fuel (MOX, no thorium). For RGPu and WGPu, the initial amount of U-233 and its decay for around a million years can be seen. This has an effect on the total activity curve of the three fuel types. The initial absence of U-233 and its daughter products in

3430-519: The final encapsulation and burial will take place, and the access tunnel will be backfilled and sealed. In 2012, a research group at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, published research suggesting the copper capsules are not as corrosion-proof as the companies planning the repositories claim (see KBS-3 ). This was refuted when SKB undertook follow-up studies, which indicated that

3500-567: The fuel are a concentrated form of high-level waste as are the chemicals used in the process. While most countries reprocess the fuel carrying out single plutonium cycles, India is planning multiple plutonium recycling schemes and Russia pursues closed cycle. The use of different fuels in nuclear reactors results in different spent nuclear fuel (SNF) composition, with varying activity curves. The most abundant material being U-238 with other uranium isotopes, other actinides, fission products and activation products. Long-lived radioactive waste from

3570-408: The future, and burying it in permanent sealed storage would limit that potential. Danish director Michael Madsen has co-written and directed a feature-length documentary Into Eternity (2010) where the initial phase of the excavation is featured and experts interviewed. The director's special emphasis is on the semiotic difficulties in meaningfully marking the depository as dangerous for people in

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3640-416: The half-life rule, the rate of decay is inversely proportional to the duration of decay. In other words, the radiation from a long-lived isotope like iodine-129 will be much less intense than that of a short-lived isotope like iodine-131 . The two tables show some of the major radioisotopes, their half-lives, and their radiation yield as a proportion of the yield of fission of uranium-235. The energy and

3710-411: The hundreds of thousands to millions of years. The minor actinides meanwhile are heavy elements other than uranium and plutonium which are created by neutron capture . Their half lives range from years to millions of years and as alpha emitters they are particularly radiotoxic. While there are proposed – and to a much lesser extent current – uses of all those elements, commercial scale reprocessing using

3780-412: The inside of pipework. In an oil processing plant, the area of the plant where propane is processed is often one of the more contaminated areas of the plant as radon has a similar boiling point to propane. Radioactive elements are an industrial problem in some oil wells where workers operating in direct contact with the crude oil and brine can be exposed to doses having negative health effects. Due to

3850-565: The nature of the chemical compound which contains the radioisotope. No fission products have a half-life in the range of 100 a–210 ka ... ... nor beyond 15.7 Ma Radioactive waste comes from a number of sources. In countries with nuclear power plants, nuclear armament, or nuclear fuel treatment plants, the majority of waste originates from the nuclear fuel cycle and nuclear weapons reprocessing. Other sources include medical and industrial wastes, as well as naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) that can be concentrated as

3920-886: The north of Scotland is the Dounreay site which is prepared to withstand a 4m tsunami. [1] Some high-activity LLW requires shielding during handling and transport but most LLW is suitable for shallow land burial. To reduce its volume, it is often compacted or incinerated before disposal. Low-level waste is divided into four classes: class A , class B , class C , and Greater Than Class C ( GTCC ). Intermediate-level waste (ILW) contains higher amounts of radioactivity compared to low-level waste. It generally requires shielding, but not cooling. Intermediate-level wastes includes resins , chemical sludge and metal nuclear fuel cladding, as well as contaminated materials from reactor decommissioning. It may be solidified in concrete or bitumen or mixed with silica sand and vitrified for disposal. As

3990-573: The nuclear fuel cycle). TENORM is not regulated as restrictively as nuclear reactor waste, though there are no significant differences in the radiological risks of these materials. Coal contains a small amount of radioactive uranium, barium, thorium, and potassium, but, in the case of pure coal, this is significantly less than the average concentration of those elements in the Earth's crust . The surrounding strata, if shale or mudstone, often contain slightly more than average and this may also be reflected in

4060-491: The nuclear fuel cycle, mostly spent fuel rods , contains fission products that emit beta and gamma radiation, and actinides that emit alpha particles , such as uranium-234 (half-life 245 thousand years), neptunium-237 (2.144 million years), plutonium-238 (87.7 years) and americium-241 (432 years), and even sometimes some neutron emitters such as californium (half-life of 898 years for californium-251). These isotopes are formed in nuclear reactors . It

4130-440: The open literature. Some designs might contain a radioisotope thermoelectric generator using Pu-238 to provide a long-lasting source of electrical power for the electronics in the device. It is likely that the fissile material of an old nuclear bomb, which is due for refitting, will contain decay products of the plutonium isotopes used in it. These are likely to include U-236 from Pu-240 impurities plus some U-235 from decay of

4200-449: The opinions of local residents were also taken into account. Eurajoki and Loviisa were singled out for being the locations with the highest local support. The former also had more favorable geographic conditions, thus in 1999 Posiva proposed it to the Finnish government as the selected location. The municipality of Eurajoki confirmed its approval of the site, and the national government ratified

4270-402: The potential to become "plutonium mines", from which material for nuclear weapons can be acquired with relatively little difficulty. Critics of the latter idea have pointed out the difficulty of recovering useful material from sealed deep storage areas makes other methods preferable. Specifically, high radioactivity and heat (80 °C in surrounding rock) greatly increase the difficulty of mining

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4340-608: The power plants. The municipality of Eurajoki issued a building permit for the facility in August 2003 and excavation began in 2004. The site was selected after a long process, which started in 1983 with a screening of the whole Finnish territory. From 1993 until 2000, four prospective sites were examined: Romuvaara in Kuhmo , Kivetty in Äänekoski , Olkiluoto in Eurajoki and Hästholmen in Loviisa . Besides geological and environmental considerations,

4410-477: The recently developed method of geomelting , however the task can be difficult and it acknowledges that some may never be completely remediated. In just one of these 108 larger designations, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), there were for example at least "167 known contaminant release sites" in one of the three subdivisions of the 37,000-acre (150 km ) site. Some of the U.S. sites were smaller in nature, however, cleanup issues were simpler to address, and

4480-588: The relatively high concentration of these elements in the brine, its disposal is also a technological challenge. Since the 1980s, in the United States, the brine is however exempt from the dangerous waste regulations and can be disposed of regardless of radioactive or toxic substances content. Due to natural occurrence of radioactive elements such as thorium and radium in rare-earth ore , mining operations also result in production of waste and mineral deposits that are slightly radioactive. Classification of radioactive waste varies by country. The IAEA, which publishes

4550-422: The repository and overpacked with bentonite clay . The estimated cost of this project is about €818 million, which includes construction, encapsulation, and operating costs. The State Nuclear Waste Management Fund has approximately €1.4 billion from charges for generated electricity. The Onkalo repository is expected to be large enough to accept canisters of spent fuel for around one hundred years. At this point,

4620-452: The same material disposed of in a non-active area, such as a normal office block. Example LLW includes wiping rags, mops, medical tubes, laboratory animal carcasses, and more. LLW makes up 94% of all radioactive waste volume in the UK. Most of it is disposed of in Cumbria , first in landfill style trenches, and now using grouted metal containers that are stacked in concrete vaults. A new site in

4690-637: The total radioactivity produced in the process of nuclear electricity generation but it contributes to less than 1% of volume of all radioactive waste produced in the UK. Overall, the 60-year-long nuclear program in the UK up until 2019 produced 2150 m of HLW. The radioactive waste from spent fuel rods consists primarily of cesium-137 and strontium-90, but it may also include plutonium, which can be considered transuranic waste. The half-lives of these radioactive elements can differ quite extremely. Some elements, such as cesium-137 and strontium-90 have half-lives of approximately 30 years. Meanwhile, plutonium has

4760-454: The two existing producers of nuclear power in Finland, Fortum and TVO . ( Fennovoima , a company which was planning its first nuclear reactor, is not a stockholder of Posiva.) The facility's constructions plans are divided into four phases: Once in operation, the disposal process will involve placing twelve fuel assemblies into a boron steel canister and enclosing it in a copper capsule. Each capsule will then be placed in its own hole in

4830-403: The type of the ionizing radiation emitted by a radioactive substance are also important factors in determining its threat to humans. The chemical properties of the radioactive element will determine how mobile the substance is and how likely it is to spread into the environment and contaminate humans. This is further complicated by the fact that many radioisotopes do not decay immediately to

4900-494: Was estimated that about 250,000 t of nuclear HLW were stored globally. This does not include amounts that have escaped into the environment from accidents or tests. Japan is estimated to hold 17,000 t of HLW in storage in 2015. As of 2019, the United States has over 90,000 t of HLW. HLW have been shipped to other countries to be stored or reprocessed and, in some cases, shipped back as active fuel. Emperor X Chad Randall Matheny , known professionally as Emperor X ,

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