Go-ahead for expansion of Swedish repository
Svensk Kärnbränslehantering AB can begin excavation works to extend the existing SFR final repository for low and intermediate-level waste at Forsmark following the approval of its safety report by Sweden's Radiation Safety Authority.
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The SFR repository is situated 60 metres below the bottom of the Baltic Sea and began operations in 1988. The facility comprises four 160-metre long rock vaults and a chamber in the bedrock with a 50-metre high concrete silo for the most radioactive waste. Two parallel kilometre-long access tunnels link the facility to the surface. The facility currently has a total final disposal capacity of about 63,000 cubic metres of waste.
Most of the short-lived waste deposited in the SFR comes from Swedish nuclear power plants, but radioactive waste from hospitals, veterinary medicine, research and industry is also deposited within it.
Svensk Kärnbränslehantering AB (SKB) applied in December 2014 to triple the size of the repository, to about 180,000 cubic metres. The application was submitted to the government by the Land and Environment Court and the Radiation Safety Authority in November 2019. In April 2021, the municipality of Östhammar, where the SFR is located, also approved the extension. Following a government decision in December 2021 to approve the application, the matter was referred back to SSM and the Court.
SKB received an environmental permit from the Land and Environment Court for the expansion in December 2022. That permit regulates, for example, noise and transport. In April 2023, SKB submitted a preliminary safety report to SSM on extending the SFR.
The Radiation Safety Authority (SSM) has now reviewed and approved SKB's preliminary safety report, enabling the construction of the expanded final repository to begin.
"What we have reviewed is that the facility can be built so that the requirements for radiation safety are met, both during the time the facility is in operation and after the closure of the final repository," said Anki Hägg, an investigator at the unit for permit review of nuclear facilities at the SSM. "It is the long-term radiation safety that is in focus."
The SSM has issued permit conditions which mean that before the most qualified part of the repository can be built, SKB must submit a developed and detailed account of the construction. It must then be approved by the authority. The company must also present a plan of what measures will be taken during construction, and the plan must be updated every six months.
"Before the expanded facility can be put into trial operation, a renewed safety report needs to be reviewed and approved by the Radiation Safety Authority," Hägg said.
SKB CEO Stefan Engdahl said: "It is an important step for SKB. We are happy that the announcement has come so that we can now start the next phase in the expansion of SFR. We now have all the permits in place to expand the facility so that we can receive our owners' operational and demolition waste. We look forward to starting rock work in mid-December."
The plan is that the repository, when extended, will have six new rock vaults, 240-275 metres long. The intention is to construct the extension at a depth of 120-140 metres, level with the lowest part of the current SFR repository.
Expanding the SFR will take about six years - three years of rock work and three years of installation work, SKB said.
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