Can sealing of rock hosting a repository for highly radioactive waste be relied on英文文献资料.docVIP

Vol.4, Special Issue, 895-905 (2012) Natural Science /10.4236/ns.2012.431117 Can sealing of rock hosting a repository for highly radioactive waste be relied on? Roland Pusch , Sven Knutsson , Gunnar Ramqvist , Mohammed Hatem Mohammed , 1* 1 2 1 1 Alireza Pourbakhtiar 1 * 2 Department of Civil, Environmental and Natural Resources Engineering, Lule? University of Technology, Lule?, Sweden; Corresponding Author: drawrite.se@ Eltekno AB, Oscarshamn, Sweden Received 11 October 2012; revised 15 November 2012; accepted 25 November 2012 ABSTRACT radioactive waste (HLW) must not contaminate the groundwater as required by national and international (IAEA) codes. The commonly applied multibarrier prin- ciple implies that the host rock, the waste canisters, and the clay surrounding them shall combine to retard migra- tion of radionuclides escaping from the canisters. Com- prehensive research in Sweden and Finland (Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Co and POSIVA OY, respectively) has led to the proposal of using thin- walled copper canisters with spent nuclear fuel placed inside an iron core [1,2]. Such canisters, representing a first barrier, will not remain tight if sheared by signifi- cant instantaneous or repeated seismic events, and ra- dionuclides being released from the failed canisters would enter the second barrier consisting of very dense smectite-rich clay [1]. Theoretically, several types of radionuclides would be hindered by ion-exchange me- chanisms and sorption but the hydrothermal processes generated by the heat production may significantly re- duce the isolating capacity of the clay [3], leaving the rock as the only remaining obstacle to contamination of the biosphere.