It is located about half a kilometer deep under the small town of Eurajoki in southwestern Finland being built A nuclear waste repository expected to be able to safely store radioactive waste for 100,000 years from its opening in 2024 – spent uranium fuel will be placed in copper drums and then protected from the outside world with new layers to allow any harmful materials to escape.
There are two nuclear plants in Finland, one of which is on Olkiluoto Island in Eurajoki. The power plant’s first two reactors were built in the 1970s and 1980s, while the third reactor began generating electricity in March of this year, and is expected to reach a maximum capacity of 1.6 gigawatts by midsummer. If this happened, nuclear power would be responsible for more than 40 percent of Finland’s electricity production.
In the early 1990s, a company called Posiva began searching for a suitable site to build a large nuclear waste repository, and eventually Olkiluoto was chosen because it is located halfway between two geological fault lines, which means it is protected from unlikely earthquakes. in the region. In addition, the bedrock here consists of gneiss, which water cannot penetrate – this is important because any harmful substance can only reach the surface from a deep reservoir through the water.
The spent fuel will be sealed by the robots in cast iron tanks, which are then placed in copper drums, and between the two tanks, the machines will release argon gas to provide an inert atmosphere and then weld the copper tank. One huge pit can hold 30 to 40 tanks, which are then covered with one type of clay, bentonite, before concrete is poured. In tunnels located at a depth of 430 meters, radioactive waste can be stored for 100,000 years, during which time it safely decomposes.
One of the main ethical issues of the project (which is addressed in the 2010 Danish documentary Olkiluoto) in eternity How to ensure that the next generation of nuclear waste is not harmed. For example, how to communicate danger without knowing the linguistic and communicative changes that will occur in the next millennia.
The facility, called Onkalo (or Pit), is scheduled to come into operation in 2024, which According to experts This is largely due to the Finnish political atmosphere and culture, as “Finland has a very high level of trust in science and authorities. If the national authority says storage is safe, there is no need to worry.” According to them, poor faith in politicians and science in many countries, including the United States, is hampering similar initiatives — not to mention the nuclear waste storage facility in the Nevada Yucca Mountains that has been under discussion in the United States for 35 years.
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