SKB's Horisonal Deposition in Crystaline Rock at Äspö Hard Rock Laboratory in Sweden

ANDRA Hard Rock Laboratory in Bure, France

Safety Barriers in NAGRAs disposal Concept

Visualization of NAGRAS test set-up(perspective side view, without back-fill / sensors / rock bolts)



The Lucoex Project

The European Council outlined the following objective for the research area management of radioactive waste:

“Through implementation-oriented RTD, the activities aim to establish a sound scientific and technical basis for demonstrating the technologies and safety of disposal of spent fuel and long-lived radioactive wastes in geological formations ...”

In the FP7 work programme 2010 it is stated that the expected impact of projects should be that they contribute

“to the progress towards the implementing of geological disposal in line with the Vision Report and initial roadmaps of IGD-TP and the 2020 objectives of the SET-Plan, together with significant advances in the treatment and/or understanding of key remaining issues. In particular, this should lead to demonstrable improvements in robustness of associated performance and safety analyses, and ultimately to increased confidence in the safety case ...”

SKB, Andra, Nagra and Posiva address these objectives by implementing a joint collaboration in four full scale Proof-of-concept underground concept experiments: LUCOEX

The overall objective of the four year LUCOEX project is to demonstrate the technical feasibility in situ for safe and reliable construction, manufacturing, disposal and sealing of repositories for long-lived high-level nuclear waste. The demonstration activities in the project take place in four different underground research laboratories (URL) in Europe, which have been constructed for the specific purpose of developing repository technology under repository-like conditions. The demonstrations include four different geological deposition concepts, which have been developed individually to the present state-of-the-art in national programmes. We are now combining knowledge and practical experiences to develop the demonstration installations and these concepts further in cooperation.

The four addressed repository concepts are:

  • Horizontal disposal of waste packages in Opalinus Clay formation
  • Horizontal disposal of waste packages in Callovo-Oxfordian clay formation
  • Horizontal disposal of waste packages in crystalline hard rock
  • Vertical disposal of waste packages in crystalline hard rock

In order to establish confidence in the technical feasibility of constructing and operating the four repository concepts the following key technical issues are addressed in LUCOEX:

  • Gallery construction
  • Manufacturing and emplacement of buffer around waste canisters
  • Emplacement of waste packages
  • Backfilling and sealing of galleries

The quality and use of obtained technical achievements are enhanced by engaging many more persons in the addressed issues than the ones taking part in the actual project. This is achieved by distributing out results and findings through workshops, conferences, our webpage, scholarships for participating in the project and most importantly through a direct dialogue with interested parties. Because of this we have ensured that all four participating URLs are open for domestic and foreign engineers, decision makers and the general public interested in getting information at the actual sites of the demonstrations.


Recent News / Stuff From Our Blog

Participants