European Geosciences Union 2018

The European Geosciences Union will be holding its annual General Assembly, EGU18, on 8-13 April 2018 in Vienna, Austria.

Aims and Scope

The EGU General Assembly 2018 will bring together geoscientists from all over the world to one meeting covering all disciplines of the Earth, planetary and space sciences. The EGU aims to provide a forum where scientists, especially early career researchers, can present their work and discuss their ideas with experts in all fields of geoscience. The EGU is looking forward to cordially welcoming you in Vienna.

Applications open for the EGU General Assembly Mentoring Programme

For the second year in a row, the EGU is offering a mentoring programme for novice conference attendees, students, and early career scientists at its annual General Assembly. The programme aims to facilitate new connections that may lead to long-term professional relationships within the Earth, planetary, and space science communities. It promises to be a rewarding experience for both mentees and mentors, so do consider signing up (deadline: 31 January 2018).

Sessions Relevant to Radioactive Waste Management

There are a number sessions relevant to radioactive waste management and disposal in the ERE (Energy, Resources and the Environment) Programme Group, specifically section ERE5: Geo-storage for a sustainable future.  These sessions include the following:

ERE5.4: Solutions and concepts for subsurface storage of spent nuclear fuel

Generation of electricity by nuclear fission is an important component in the future energy mix for nearly all prognoses concerning CO2 emission reductions. Most scenarios imply an increase in the utilization of nuclear power to supply our electricity needs. Nuclear power stations require only small areas of land and small amounts of fuel, making them attractive from a land and resource use perspective. One complication with nuclear fission is the handling of the highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel. Several plans and concepts exist, including mined storage solutions in salt, crystalline rock and impermeable clays in the uppermost 500 m, as well as storage in deep boreholes in the 3-5 km range. In this session we encourage contributions dealing with storage concepts, risk analysis, site characterization and public outreach. Contributions providing overviews of different nations approaches to handling the spent fuel are also welcomed.

ERE5.5: Assessment of Barrier Integrity in Geological Repositories for Nuclear Waste Disposal and Contaminant Isolation

Barrier integrity is a crucial aspect for the assessment of subsurface technologies. For the storage of thermal energy and other energy carriers, or the deposition of high-level nuclear or chemotoxic waste, different repository concepts in diverse geological candidate formations such as rock salt, clay stone and crystalline rock are being discussed. Computational methods and numerical simulations, in conjunction with experimental studies across scales from micro-scale to field scale, are an integral part of safety and environmental-impact assessment concepts involving barrier integrity as a key component. Reliable comparative analyses of potential technological options require physical models capturing the individual particularities of each rock type and associated geotechnical repository and barrier concept to a comparable level of sophistication. Structural as well as process complexity and large computational domains combine to render a reliable and efficient analysis a major challenge. This complexity is often met by data scarcity and variability, necessitating the theoretical and computational treatment of uncertainties and variability at different scales involved in numerical analyses at different levels.

This session provides a new platform for the exchange of geophysical, geochemical, geotechnical knowledge for assessing the integrity of barriers and multi-barrier systems considering equally conceptual, theoretical, computational, experimental and societal aspects.

GI1.2/AS4.21/BG1.31/EMRP4.4/ERE5.6/HS11.11/NH8.8/OS4.11/SSS13.16: Geoscience processes related to Fukushima and Chernobyl nuclear accidents (co-organized)

The session gathers geoscientific aspects and results on the dynamics and processes related to radioactive materials released from nuclear accidents, particularly the Fukushima and Chernobyl nuclear power accidents, covering release of radioactive material, its global transport, and impact on the ground. The session also consists of updated observations, new theoretical developments including simulations, methods or tools which could improve our predictive capabilities during eventual future nuclear emergencies. Studies evaluating existing tools at the example of past nuclear accidents and/or other data sets (e.g., tracer experiments) are welcome as well.

Radioactive contamination due to massive accidental release of nuclear material from the Fukushima and Chernobyl accidents has a large geophysical impact and hence is a multi-disciplinary geoscience problem involving inter-alia, (i) Atmospheric Science (emissions, transport, pollution, ions); (ii) Hydrology (surface water, ground water, soil-water interaction); (iii) Oceanology; (iv) Soil System; (v) Forestry; (vi) Natural Hazard (warning system, risk assessments including geophysical variability); (vii) Measurement Technique (e.g., analyses of multi-point data); and Ecosystem (natural removal/migration of radionuclides). Not only as the polluting materials that are hazardous to human society, the radioactive materials are also an ideal marker in understanding dynamics in the environment.

By combining >30 year (the half-life of Cesium-137) monitoring data of the Chernobyl Accident in 1986 and >5 year dense measurement network data by the most advanced instrumentation for the Fukushima Accident, our knowledgebase on both the behavior of radioactive materials and its environmental contamination have significantly improved. This knowledge should also be used in developing improved monitoring systems including emergency time, acute sampling/measurement schemes, and remediation schemes for a future accident.

More information

Further information is available on the conference website: https://egu2018.eu/home.html

Instructions for submitting an abstract are located at: https://www.egu2018.eu/abstract_management/how_to_submit_an_abstract.html