“Construction has begun in Sweden on a final repository for spent nuclear fuel that will store highly radioactive waste for 100,000 years.”, — write: epravda.com.ua
Construction has begun in Sweden on a final repository for spent nuclear fuel that will store highly radioactive waste for 100,000 years. This is reported by the Reuters agency. According to the estimates of the World Nuclear Association, the world has accumulated about 300,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel that needs disposal. It is mostly stored in cooling pools near the reactors that produced it. With growing plans to build new reactors in Europe and elsewhere to replace fossil fuels, this issue is becoming even more urgent.Advertisement: The Forsmark Final Repository, located 150 km north of Stockholm, will consist of 60 km of tunnels 500 meters deep in bedrock 1.9 billion years old. It will house 12,000 tons of nuclear fuel, packed in 5-meter anti-corrosion copper capsules, which will be covered with clay before burial. The Forsmark repository will receive the first waste in the late 2030s, but is not expected to be completed until 2080, when the tunnels are filled and sealed, SKB, the company responsible for nuclear fuel and waste, said.Advertisement: The repository will cost about $1.08 billion and will be financed at the expense of the nuclear industry. It will house all the waste produced by Sweden’s existing nuclear plants, but will not accept fuel from future reactors.