Posiva's Site Investigations Programme

Extract

Four nuclear power plant units have been operated in Finland over 20 years. The plants are located at two sites, Olkiluoto and Loviisa. Responsibility for nuclear waste management lies on the utilities, which have established a joint company POSIVA to take care of spent fuel disposal and other expert tasks of nuclear waste management.

Already in 1983 the Finnish Government set the objectives and the schedule for the national waste management programme. Since then, two shallow underground repositories have been constructed for low- and medium-level operating waste in crystalline rock at the power plant sites. At the end of 2002 the amount of operating waste emplaced in these two facilities was 4923 m³ (total accumulation 6724 m³).

Spent nuclear fuel is stored in interim storage pools at the nuclear power plant sites. The total accumulation was 1228 tU at the end of 2002. Today, the main activities in nuclear waste management concern spent fuel disposal deep in the Finnish bedrock. Apart from technical and scientific issues, a major challenge faced has been the creation of sufficient public acceptance, which is a must in order to obtain favourable political decisions.