Canada plans deep repository for spent nuclear fuel in Ontario
Canada plans to build a deep geological repository for spent nuclear fuel in the town of Ignace in Ontario. The facility is to be located at a depth of approximately 750 meters in the hard rock of the Canadian Shield. As OilPrice reports, completion of the work is expected around 2040.
Containers and bentonite clay
Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization, NWMO, has created a test site in Oakville where it is testing fuel isolation technology. An autonomous loader places 8,000-kilogram blocks of bentonite clay in a narrow tunnel, while another automated machine fills the gaps with crushed clay.
Each block is designed to hold a steel container with a copper coating, in which spent nuclear fuel will be stored. The tunnels are then planned to be sealed with additional layers of clay and concrete. The containers are designed, among other things, to withstand the pressure of a 3-kilometer-thick glacier and have undergone compression tests under a load equivalent to being more than 6 kilometers underwater.
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Capacity of the future facility
Once completed, the repository will be able to accommodate nearly 6 million spent fuel assemblies produced by Canada’s four nuclear power plants over their operating lifetimes, according to the publication. High-level waste, which includes spent fuel, accounts for about 3% of the total volume of nuclear power waste but contains approximately 95% of its radioactivity.
Similar deep geological repositories are also being developed in Finland, Sweden, and Japan. In the United States, a permanent repository is still not operating: the project at Yucca Mountain in Nevada was halted due to political opposition. According to OilPrice, the United States has accumulated about 95,000 tonnes of nuclear waste.
