Abstract
Nuclear power has the potential to provide significant amounts of reliable electricity generation without carbon dioxide emissions. Disposing of radioactive waste is, however, an ongoing challenge, and if it is to be buried, the characterisation of the regional groundwater system is vital to protect the anthroposphere. This aspect is understudied in comparison to the engineered facility; yet, selecting a suitable groundwater setting can ensure radionuclide isolation hundreds of thousands of years beyond that provided by the engineered structure. This paper presents a multi-faceted scoping tool to quantitatively assess, and directly compare, the regional hydrogeological prospectivity of different groundwater settings for disposal at an early stage of the site selection process. The scoping tool is demonstrated using geological data from three distinct UK groundwater settings as a case study. Results indicate a significant difference in the performance potential of different regional groundwater settings to ensure long-term waste containment.
Highlights
Nuclear power provides a reliable and low carbon source of electrical energy, currently accounting for 21% of the total UK electricity production (BEIS 2017)
The method is undertaken in three stages: firstly, a benchmark scenario is defined against which the Hydrogeological characteristics (HCs) of the chosen settings could be directly compared; secondly, three settings are selected for assessment; and thirdly, numerical regional groundwater flow models to represent each of the selected settings are developed
A method is presented to assess and score the likely performance of any regional groundwater setting, which is required as part of a comprehensive multi-barrier deep geological disposal facility
Summary
Nuclear power provides a reliable and low carbon source of electrical energy, currently accounting for 21% of the total UK electricity production (BEIS 2017). An unfortunate byproduct of this process is the generation of highly radioactive and chemical-toxic waste (NDA 2017), which must be managed safely. By 2125 the UK is predicted to have 4.77 million m3 of packaged radioactive waste requiring management (NDA 2017). The chosen international approach is to dispose of the most radioactive of this waste 650,000 m3 in the UK (NDA 2014)) within a deep geological disposal facility (GDF) situated 200–1,000 m below the ground surface (Apted and Ahn 2017; NDA 2013, 2014; Streffer et al 2011). Officially selected disposal locations for their higher activity civil waste legacy. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in the USA is accepting military-derived radioactive waste. All other waste producing nations (including the UK) remain in the search phase
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