Swedes Move Forward on First Spent Fuel Repository

A Swedish company has completed the application to build the country’s first permanent repository for spent nuclear fuel, a facility at Forsmark that would have the capacity to store 171,000 cubic meters of short-lived waste (SFR).

World Nuclear News reported that the Land and Environment Court in Stockholm deemed the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Co.’s (SKB) application complete last week. The country’s spent fuel is currently in temporary storage in Oskarshamn. SKB plans to encapsulate the fuel in copper canisters, which would be fed into a system of tunnels about 500 meters deep in bedrock of bentonite clay, the publication reported.

“We are now taking a step closer towards the aim of being able to deal with radioactive waste both from operations and from decommissioning of the Swedish nuclear power plants,” SKB CEO Christopher Eckerberg said in a statement.