"For long-lived waste such as that produced through reprocessing, we need to demonstrate it will be secure for millions of years."
"A million years should not be viewed as a definitive statement by the French Nuclear Safety Agency (NSA) on what is acceptable because, really, the timeline could extend much further"
http://www.paristechreview.com/2011/06/23/danger-radioactive-waste-million-years/“Danger: Radioactive Waste”: A Message in a Bottle to Last… a Million Years
Marie-Claude Dupuis / Chief Executive Officer for Andra (French National Radioactive Waste Management Agency) / June 23rd, 2011
All nuclear countries are faced with the thorny question of how to handle waste. France has made the decision to bury the most radioactive waste 500 meters underground in a 150 million year old layer of clay 130 meters thick, at Bure in the heart of the Lorraine countryside. According to the timeline, a law will be passed in 2016 to authorize construction. Marie-Claude Dupuis, CEO of Andra (French National Radioactive Waste Management Agency) and Chairperson of the Radioactive Waste Management Committee of the OECD discusses the project. <snip>
Q: Long term, the goal is to bury the most radioactive waste deep underground. Why hasn’t this already been done?
The decision to stock waste underground will require a huge expenditure of political will, due to the national scope of the proposals. No concrete steps can be taken without extremely advanced investigations and far-reaching discussions with the various stakeholders.
Q: In the future, will all waste be placed underground?
It depends on the level of ‘activity’ and the length of time it will remain radioactive which can be anything from a couple of days for hospital waste, to millions of years for uranium or iodine. For short-lived radioactive waste (indicating a half-life of less than 30 years) surface storage is an adequate solution. Sites would be monitored for 300 years to ensure that radioactivity had sufficiently dissipated so as to pose no threat to public health. For long-lived waste such as that produced through reprocessing, we need to demonstrate it will be secure for millions of years. The OECD, by way of its Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), and the IAEA, have recommended that these types of waste be buried in geologically stable parts of the earth’s core in chambers at least 500 meters deep.
Q: Why a million years?
A million years should not be viewed as a definitive statement by the French Nuclear Safety Agency (NSA) on what is acceptable because, really, the timeline could extend much further, but it is reasonable given what we know about the lifespan of the radioactive elements covered by the recommendation. We also know that a million years is the time it takes to reduce the levels of radio toxicity found in spent fuel to levels that correspond to those found naturally in uranium deposits.
<snip>
Some people were surprised to learn that the US National Academy of Science recommended that nuclear waste be contained for a million years. A federal judge ordered the Bush EPA to follow the science, so now the EPA standard is a million years. And here are French scientists telling us that should not be viewed as definitive, the timeline could extend much further.
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