The final repository for short-lived radioactive waste needs to be extended

SKB plans to extend the existing final repository for short-lived radioactive waste to create space for low-level and intermediate-level decommissioning waste from the Swedish nuclear power plants.

Many of the Swedish nuclear power reactors have now been shut down and are to be dismantled and decommissioned. The decommissioning waste that contains radioactivity will be finally disposed of in the final repository for short-lived radioactive waste. This includes reactor components, scrap metal, concrete and other construction materials that have absorbed radioactive substances during the operating period.

But the final repository for short-lived radioactive waste needs to be extended in order to accommodate this. At present, the facility has space for about 63,000 cubic metres of short-lived low-level and intermediate-level operational waste, and it is 60 per cent full. Additional space is needed for 117,000 cubic metres.

Six new rock vaults

The plan is that the repository, when extended, will have six new rock vaults, 240 to 275 metres long, and be about three times as big as it is now. The extended part, just like the current final repository for short-lived radioactive waste, will be located in the bedrock beneath the sea bed, near Forsmark. The intention is to construct the extension at a depth of 120 to 140 metres, level with the lowest part of the current final repository for short-lived radioactive waste.

Review under way

To make the extension possible, SKB submitted applications under the Swedish Nuclear Activities Act and the Swedish Environmental Code to the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority and the Land and Environment Court respectively, at the end of 2014. These comprise around 6,000 pages consisting of, among other things, an environmental impact statement and an analysis of safety, both during operation and after closure. In January 2019, the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority gave the go-ahead for the extension. During two weeks in September/October 2019, the application was reviewed by the Land and Environment Court in a main hearing. In November, the Land and Environment Court also endorsed the application for an extension.

In April 2021, Östhammar Municipal Council approved SKB’s applications, and in December 2021 the Swedish Government granted a licence under the Swedish Nuclear Activities Act and permissibility under the Swedish Environmental Code.

A conditional judgement will now be made in the Land and Environment Court under the Swedish Environmental Code, and the intermittent licensing process under the Swedish Nuclear Activities Act will continue.

Once SKB has an environmental judgement and the next step under the Swedish Nuclear Activities Act is approved by the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority, work on the extension can begin. The construction work is estimated to take six years.