Types of Disposal

Near-surface disposal

Near-surface disposal facilities at ground level. These facilities are on or below the surface
where the protective covering is of the order of a few meters thick. Waste containers are placed
in constructed vaults and when full the vaults are backfilled. Eventually they will be covered and
capped with an impermeable membrane and topsoil. These facilities may incorporate some form
of drainage and possibly a gas venting system. Near-surface disposal facilities in caverns below
ground level. Unlike near-surface disposal at ground level, where the excavations are conducted
from the surface, shallow disposal requires underground excavation of caverns. The facility is at
a depth of several tens of meters below the Earth's surface and accessed through a drift.

The term near-surface disposal replaces the terms 'shallow land' and 'ground disposal', but
these older terms are still sometimes used when referring to this option. These facilities will be
affected by long-term climate changes (such as glaciation) and this effect must be taken into
account when considering safety, as such changes could disrupt these facilities. This type of
facility is therefore typically used for LLW and short-lived ILW with half-lives of up to 30 years.

Deep geological disposal

The long timescales over which some waste remains radioactive has led to the idea of
deep disposal in underground repositories in stable geological formations. Isolation is provided
by a combination of engineered and natural barriers (rock, salt, clay) and no obligation to
actively maintain the facility is passed on to future generations. This is often termed a 'multi-
barrier' concept, with the waste packaging, the engineered repository, and the geology all
providing barriers to prevent the radionuclides from reaching humans and the environment. In
addition, deep groundwater is generally devoid of oxygen, minimizing the possibility of
chemical mobilization of waste.

Mined repositories

The most widely proposed deep geological disposal concept is for a mined repository
comprising tunnels or caverns into which packaged waste would be placed. In some cases, the
waste containers are then surrounded by a material such as cement or clay to provide another
barrier. The choice of waste container materials and design, as well as the buffer/backfill
material varies depending on the type of waste to be contained and the nature of the host rock-
type available.

Excavation of a deep underground repository using standard mining or civil engineering

technology is limited to accessible locations, to rock units that are reasonably stable and without
major groundwater flow, and to depths of between 250m and 1000m. The contents of the
repository would be retrievable in the short term, and if desired, longer-term. The deposits of
native (pure) copper in the world have proven that the copper used in the final disposal container
can remain unchanged inside the bedrock for extremely long periods, if the geochemical
conditions are appropriate. The findings of ancient copper tools, many thousands of years old,
also demonstrate the long-term corrosion resistance of copper, making it a credible container
material for long-term radioactive waste storage.

Deep boreholes

Deep borehole disposal has been considered as an option for geological isolation for
many years, including original evaluations by the US National Academy of Sciences in 1957 and
more recent conceptual evaluations. In contrast to recent thinking on mined repositories, the
contents would not be retrievable. Boreholes can be readily drilled as well as onshore in both
crystalline and sedimentary host rocks. This capability significantly expands the range of
locations that can be considered for the disposal of radioactive waste.

Deep borehole concepts have been developed in several countries, including Denmark,
Sweden, Switzerland, and the USA. Compared with deep geological disposal in a mined
underground repository, placement in deep boreholes is considered to be more expensive for
large volumes of waste. This option was abandoned in countries such as Sweden, Finland, and
the USA, largely on economic grounds. The borehole concept remains an attractive proposition
for the disposal of smaller waste forms including sealed radioactive sources from medical and
industrial applications.

Storage ponds

Storage ponds at reactors, and those at centralized facilities such as CLAB in Sweden, are
7-12 meters deep to allow the racked fuel assemblies to be covered by several meters of water.
The fuel assemblies are typically about 4 m long and standing on end. The multiple racks are
made of metal with neutron absorbers incorporated in it. The circulating water both shields and
cools the fuel. These pools are robust constructions made of thick reinforced concrete with steel
liners. Ponds at reactors may be designed to hold all the used fuel for the life of the reactor, but
usually the design assumes some removal of cooled fuel for reprocessing or to dry storage.

Dry storage

Some storage of fuel assemblies which have been cooling in ponds for at least five years
is in dry casks or vaults, typically with air circulation inside concrete shielding. Dry storage has
been used at US nuclear power plants since 1986, and at least one-third of the total US used fuel
is now in dry storage casks. Facilities are at most of the nuclear power plant sites. The transfer
from wet storage to dry casks at a power plant site may use special shielded transfer casks, which
are less robust than those used for transport beyond the site. Casks may contain a sealed canister
which can be transferred from one kind of cask to another.

Multi-purpose canisters

Sealed multi-purpose canisters (MPCs), also called dual-purpose canisters (DPCs), each
holding up to 89 fuel assemblies with inert gas, are commonly used for transporting, storing and
eventual disposal of used fuel. MPCs are contained inside robust over packs – metal for
transport, or mainly concrete for storage. Each MPC, constructed using 13 mm welded stainless
steel with a secure lid and internal fuel basket to hold and keep the fuel assemblies separate, is
designed for up to 45 kW heat load. MPCs have standard external dimensions and the number of
fuel assemblies actually loaded into one depends on their characteristics. Some are double-
walled (DWC), with helium in between the layers. Once an MPC is loaded the contents should
never need to be handled again.

Storage casks and systems

For storage, each MPC is enclosed in a ventilated storage module or over pack made of
concrete and steel. These are commonly standing on the surface, about 6 meters high, cooled by
air convection, or they may be horizontal in banks, or vertical and below grade, with just the tops
showing. The modules are robust and provide full shielding. At a nuclear power plant, a shielded
transfer cask is used to move the MPC from the used fuel pool to a storage module. Holtec’s
transfer casks for onsite use are called HI-TRAC.

A free-standing above-ground system accommodates a variety of sealed stainless steel

MPCs vertically inside ventilated concrete and steel over packs standing on a concrete pad. This
system is used at many US plants. A below-ground variant is HI-STORM 100U, and a more
sophisticated version stores the canisters containing used fuel in ventilated vertical steel and
concrete cavity enclosure containers 5 meters high below ground, with massive lids at ground
level. The containers are set up in a 7.6 m deep excavation and low-strength concrete grout is
backfilled around them. The final half meter of fill is a reinforced concrete pad. Seismic
tolerance is about 2000 Gal.

An above-ground horizontal system is used by 20 of the 67 ISFSIs at US nuclear plants.

The used fuel is sealed in 15 mm thick stainless steel dry storage canisters which are then moved
in horizontal shielded transfer casks to large horizontal storage modules, with each hole 5 m long
and 2 m diameter. Heat distribution in these than vertical systems, using conduction more than
convection, and also points to no gaps between modules being very safe seismically (1500 Gal)
and radiologically. Each canister holds 32-37 PWR fuel assemblies or 61-69 BWR assemblies, in
helium.
 Recognizing that long-term management options, specifically for ILW and HLW, may
require significant time to be achieved, interim storage arrangements may need to be extended
beyond the time periods originally envisaged.

Casks for deep borehole disposal

Deep Isolation has contracted with NAC International to design and supply corrosion-
resistant casks 23 to 31 cm diameter and 4.3 m long, each holding one used fuel assembly.

Transport casks

Used fuel assemblies are shipped in 'Type B' casks which are shielded with steel, or a
combination of steel and lead, and can weigh up to 110 tons when empty. They contain their
highly radioactive payload safely during transport, and may hold from 6 to 24 tons of used
fuel. Some information on transport of used fuel is given above, because sometimes very similar
equipment is used for storage, and more detail about transport generally can be found in the
information paper on Transport of Radioactive Material.

The internal structure of transport casks is designed to maintain separation of fuel

assemblies even in extreme accidents, and the external structure is designed to maintain safe
containment in extreme accidents. Both features are tested before licensing.

Long-term above ground storage

Above ground storage is normally considered an interim measure for the management of
radioactive waste. But it has, in the past, been considered as a disposal option. France
investigated it for HLW within the framework of the 1991 law on research into radioactive
waste, but not as a means of final disposal. However, controlled surface storage over longer time
periods has also been suggested as a long-term waste management option.

Long-term above ground storage involves specially constructed facilities at the Earth's
surface that would be neither backfilled nor permanently sealed. Hence, this option would allow
monitoring and retrieval at any time without excessive expenditure.

Suggestions for long-term above ground storage broadly fall into two categories:

 Conventional stores of the type currently used for interim storage, which would require
replacement and repackaging of waste every 200 years or so.
 Permanent stores that would be expected to remain intact for tens of thousands of years.
These structures are often referred to as 'Monolith' stores or 'Mausoleums'.
Long-term above ground storage has been considered as part of the range of management
concepts in Switzerland by EKRA (Expert Group on Disposal Concepts for Radioactive Waste).
EKRA observed that it was unclear what additional steps would be necessary to show how the
long-term above ground storage concept could be brought to the state of development
comparable with that of geological disposal, and it recommended geological disposal as the
preferred option.

Disposal in outer space

The objective of this option is to remove the radioactive waste from the Earth, for all
time, by ejecting it into outer space. The waste would be packaged so that it would be likely to
remain intact under most conceivable accident scenarios. A rocket or space shuttle would be
used to launch the packaged waste into space. There are several ultimate destinations for the
waste which have been considered, including directing it into the Sun.

The high cost means that such a method of waste disposal could only be appropriate for
separated HLW – i.e. long-lived highly radioactive material that is relatively small in volume –
rather than spent fuel. The question was investigated in the USA by NASA in the late 1970s and
early 1980s. Because of the high cost of this option and the safety aspects associated with the
risk of launch failure, it was abandoned.

Rock melting

The deep rock melting option involves the melting of wastes in the adjacent rock. The
idea is to produce a stable, solid mass that incorporates the waste, or encases the waste in a
diluted form, and that cannot easily be leached and transported back to the surface. This
technique has been mainly suggested for heat-generating wastes such as vitrified HLW and host
rocks with suitable characteristics to reduce heat loss.

The HLW in liquid or solid form could be placed in an excavated cavity or a deep
borehole. The heat generated by the wastes would then accumulate resulting in temperatures
great enough to melt the surrounding rock and dissolve the radionuclides in a growing sphere of
molten material. As the rock cools it would crystallize and incorporate the radionuclides in the
rock matrix, thus dispersing the waste throughout a larger volume of rock. There are some
variations of this option in which the heat-generating waste would be placed in containers and
the rock around the container melted. Alternatively, if insufficient heat is generated the waste
would be immobilized in the rock matrix by conventional or nuclear explosion.

Rock melting has not been implemented anywhere for radioactive waste. There have
been no practical demonstrations of the feasibility of this option, apart from laboratory studies of
rock melting. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the rock melting option at depth was taken
forward to the engineering design stage. This design involved a shaft or borehole which led to an
excavated cavity at a depth of 2.5 kilometers. It was estimated, but not demonstrated, that the
waste would be immobilized in a volume of rock 1000 times larger than the original volume of
waste.

Disposal at subduction zones

Subduction zones are areas where one denser section of the Earth's crust is descending
beneath another lighter, more buoyant section. The movement of one section of the Earth's crust
below another is marked offshore by a trench, and earthquakes commonly occur adjacent to the
inclined contact between the two plates. The edge of the overriding plate is crumpled and
uplifted to form a mountain chain parallel to the trench. Deep sea sediments may be scraped off
the descending slab and incorporated into the adjacent mountains. As the oceanic plate descends
into the hot mantle, parts of it may begin to melt. The magma thus formed migrates upwards,
some of it reaching the surface as lava erupting from volcanic vents. The idea for this option
would be to dispose of wastes in the trench region such that they would be drawn deep into the
Earth.

Although subduction zones are present at a number of locations across the Earth's
surface, they are geographically very restricted. Not every waste-producing country would be
able to consider disposal to deep-sea trenches, unless international solutions were sought.
However, this option has not been implemented anywhere and, as it is a form of sea disposal, it
is therefore not permitted by international agreements.

Sea disposal

Disposal at sea involves radioactive waste being dropped into the sea in packaging
designed to either: implode at depth, resulting in direct release and dispersion of radioactive
material into the sea; or sink to the seabed intact. Over time the physical containment of
containers would fail, and remaining radionuclides would be dispersed and diluted in the sea.
Further dilution would occur as the radionuclides migrated from the disposal site, carried by
currents. The amount of radionuclides remaining in the seawater would be further reduced both
by natural radioactive decay, and by the removal of radionuclides to seabed sediments by the
process of sorption.

The application of the sea disposal of LLW and ILW has evolved over time from being a
disposal method that was actually implemented by a number of countries, to one that is now
banned by international agreements. Countries that have at one time or another undertaken sea
disposal using the above techniques include Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands,
Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK, as well as Japan, South Korea, and the USA. This option has
not been implemented for HLW.
Sub-seabed disposal

For the sub-seabed disposal option, radioactive waste containers would be buried in a
suitable geological setting beneath the deep ocean floor. This option has been suggested for
LLW, ILW, and HLW. Variations of this option include:

 A repository located beneath the seabed. The repository would be accessed from land, a
small uninhabited island, or from an offshore structure.
 Burial of radioactive waste in deep ocean sediments.

Sub-seabed disposal has not been implemented anywhere and is not permitted by international
agreements.

The disposal of radioactive wastes in a repository constructed below the seabed has been
considered by Sweden and the UK. In comparison to disposal in deep ocean sediments, if it were
desirable the repository design concept could be developed so as to ensure that future retrieval of
the waste remained possible. The monitoring of wastes in such a repository would also be less
problematic than for other forms of sea disposal.

Burial of radioactive waste in deep ocean sediments could be achieved by two different
techniques: penetrators or drilling placement. The burial depth of waste containers below the
seabed can vary between the two methods. In the case of penetrators, waste containers could be
placed about 50 metres into the sediments. Penetrators weighing a few tonnes would fall through
the water, gaining enough momentum to embed themselves into the sediments. A key aspect of
the disposal of waste to seabed sediments is that the waste is isolated from the seabed by a
thickness of sediments. In 1986, some confidence in this process was obtained from experiments
undertaken at a water depth of approximately 250 metres in the Mediterranean Sea. The
experiments provided evidence that the entry paths created by penetrators were closed and filled
with remoulded sediments of about the same density as the surrounding undisturbed sediments.

Wastes could also be placed using drilling equipment based on the techniques in use in
the deep sea for about 30 years. By this method, stacks of packaged waste would be placed in
holes drilled to a depth of 800 metres below the seabed, with the uppermost container about 300
metres below the seabed.

Disposal in ice sheets

Containers of heat-generating waste would be placed in stable ice sheets such as those
found in Greenland and Antarctica. The containers would melt the surrounding ice and be drawn
deep into the ice sheet, where the ice would refreeze above the wastes creating a thick barrier.
Although disposal in ice sheets could be technically considered for all types of radioactive
wastes, it has only been seriously investigated for HLW, where the heat generated by the wastes
could be used to achieve self-burial within the ice by melting.

The option of disposal in ice sheets has not been implemented anywhere. It has been
rejected by countries that have signed the 1959 Antarctic Treaty or have committed to providing
a solution to their radioactive waste management within their national boundaries.

Deep well injection (liquid)

This approach involves the injection of liquid radioactive waste directly into a layer of
rock deep underground that has been chosen because of its suitable characteristics to trap the
waste (i.e. minimise any further movement following injection).

In order to achieve this there are two geological prerequisites. There must be a layer of
rock (injection layer) with sufficient porosity to accommodate the waste and with sufficient
permeability to allow easy injection (i.e. act like a sponge). Above and below the injection layer
there must be impermeable layers that act as a natural seal. Additional benefits could be provided
from geological features that limit horizontal or vertical migration. For example, injection into
layers of rock containing natural brine groundwater. This is because the high density of brine
(salt water) would reduce the potential for upward movement.

Direct injection could in principle be used on any type of radioactive waste provided that it could
be transformed into a solution or slurry (very fine particles in water). Slurries containing a
cement grout that would set as a solid when underground could also be used to help minimise
movement of radioactive waste.

Tenorm

Radioactive material is produced or collected as a waste product from the oil and gas
industry and generally referred to as 'technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive
material' (Tenorm)p. In oil and gas production, radium-226, radium-228 and lead-210 are
deposited as scale in pipes and equipment in many parts of the world. Published data show
radionuclide concentrations in scales up to 300,000 Bq/kg for Pb-210, 250,000 Bq/kg for Ra-226
and 100,000 Bq/kg for Ra-228. However, scrap steel from gas plants may be recycled if it has
less than 500,000 Bq/kg (0.5 MBq/kg) radioactivity (the exemption level)q. This level however is
1000 times higher than the clearance level for recycled material (both steel and concrete) from
the nuclear industry, where anything above 500 Bq/kg may not be cleared from regulatory
control for recycling and must be disposed of, usually as intermediate-level waste.
 The largest Tenorm waste stream is coal ash, with 280 million tonnes arising globally
each year, and carrying uranium-238 and all its non-gaseous decay products, as well as thorium-
232 and its progeny. This is usually just buried.

The double standard means that the same radionuclide, at the same concentration, can
either be sent to deep disposal as waste (if scrap from the nuclear industry) or released for use in
building materials.