Publication Laka-library:
Multinational European Nuclear Waste Disposal: Looking Off-Shore
| Author | H.Codee, E.Verhoef |
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6-01-5-70-05.pdf |
| Date | March 2014 |
| Classification | 6.01.5.70/05 (WASTE - INTERNATIONAL OR MULTINATIONAL STORAGE) |
| Front | 
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From the publication:
WM2014 Conference, March 2-6, 2014, Phoenix, Arizona, USA. Multinational European Nuclear Waste Disposal: Looking Off-Shore – 14099 Hans D.K. Codée and Ewoud V. Verhoef COVRA N.V., P.O. Box 202, 4380 AE Vlissingen, The Netherlands hans.codee@covra.nl and ewoud.verhoef@covra.nl ABSTRACT Radioactive waste generally has a small volume. Therefore it can easily be controlled and contained, but it has the disadvantage of a negative effect on the economy of scale. Geologic disposal facilities for long-lived waste are expensive to construct and operate for small quantities of waste. The economy of a national solution could strongly be improved by multinational cooperation. For the long-term management of high-level waste only geologic disposal is acceptable. Hence, any country with whatever minute quantity of waste has to find a disposal site. Site selection has always been done for land based locations and within national borders. National borders are however meaningless on the timescale of a hundred thousand years to be taken into account for a disposal facility. Looking at land based locations only might be an unnecessary limitation, realizing that most of our globe is covered with water. For an off-shore site, a geologic disposal facility is meant here and not sub-seabed disposal. In Europe there are quite some countries with small amounts of high-level waste, such as Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands all bordering the North Sea. These countries could cooperate with other countries with larger quantities of waste and create a European multi-national solution. The creation of an artificial island in the North Sea could be considered as entrance to the disposal facility and the island could host also other activities.