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Retrieval of nuclear waste canisters from a borehole
Borehole disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level waste (HLW) uses off-the-shelf directional drilling technology developed and commercialized by the oil and gas sectors. It is a technology that has been gaining traction in recent years in the nuclear industry. Disposal can be done in one or more boreholes (including an array) drilled into suitable sedimentary, igneous, or metamorphic host rocks. Waste is encapsulated in specialized corrosion-resistant canisters, which are placed end to end in disposal sections of relatively small-diameter boreholes that have been cased and fluid-filled. After emplacement, the vertical access hole is plugged and backfilled as an engineered barrier.
Bernd Richter
Nuclear Technology | Volume 121 | Number 2 | February 1998 | Pages 162-167
Technical Paper | German Direct Disposal Project | doi.org/10.13182/NT98-A2828
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
One of the two German spent-fuel management options envisages the direct (i.e., no reprocessing) final disposal of spent-fuel assemblies from nuclear reactors in a geological repository. The reference repository will be located in a salt dome. The spent fuel will become inaccessible immediately after its emplacement in drifts, and this rules out a retrieval of the nuclear material from the repository. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty requires compliance verification by inspection regimes. A safeguards approach has been developed for the German reference disposal concept, which would be applicable today and which would meet the requirements of the International Atomic Energy Agency as well as the recommendations of the 1995 Consultants Meeting on Safeguards for Geological Repositories. It foresees cask verification in the aboveground area (material balance area I) and design information verification in the aboveground and belowground (material balance area II) areas of the repository. Safeguards have to continue even after closure and decommissioning of the repository mine.
