Waste Technology Section

Near Surface Waste Disposal

Development of near surface disposal facility: A number of developing Member States has decided to construct a national facility able to accept the national inventories of low and intermediate level waste. Owing to limited expert capacities within the country most of them have requested the IAEA assistance in their development. This assistance is rendered through Technical Cooperation (TC) programmes allowing to train local staff abroad, to advise in planning and implementation of national disposal programmes taking advantage of expert capacities from more advanced countries, to hold seminars and courses and to procure some equipment or apparatus. Another efficient tool is the independent peer review provided, for example, through the WATRP programme. Currently, the support in the development of a near surface disposal facility is granted to some 10 Member States.

Training in and development of waste disposal technologies: To build credibility in the national low level waste disposal programmes the IAEA is creating a non-commercial forum for a prompt, open and efficient transfer and exchange of knowledge gained through learning from the experience of others. The Network is established to increase efficiency in sharing international experience and proven practices. In particular the IAEA intends to (i) coordinate support to Member States with less advanced programmes; (ii) organise an expanded range of training and demonstration activities; (iii) facilitate sharing and exchange knowledge and experience amongst organizations with advanced designs and disposal facilities in operation; and (iv) create a forum in which expert's advice and technical guidance may be provided on the Agency's programme in the area of low-level waste disposal. See the DISPONET website for more details.

Borehole disposal: A perspective issue that is being currently evaluated is the assessment of potential disposal options for disused radioactive sources, paying particular attention to the borehole technology. The most benefit of this technology is seen in safe disposal of disused sealed sources, but it may be recommended to any country without any other disposal option that generates small volume of radioactive waste. Taking into consideration high radioactivity and content of long lived radionuclides typical for certain types of sealed sources, some Member States consider boreholes as an additional disposal facility co-located to a near surface repository. The technology is being transmitted with TC support to a number of Member States from several regions, including Africa, South America and Asia.

Experience in waste disposal: Information about existing disposal facilities for low and intermediate level waste is disseminated in a number of publications, proceedings and databases. To give a brief overview and to facilitate easy access to basic repository characteristics, a catalogue on operational experience in near surface repositories is under development and is planned to be made available at WTS web pages.

Upgrading repositories: The IAEA published the TRS-433 describing upgrading process and providing some recent examples (see the table below). To facilitate the exchange of information on key issues, approaches and particular technologies involved in corrective actions a Coordinated Research Project was initiated in 2007. The anticipated output will be a TECDOC addressing needs for corrective actions, selection of options for and appropriate corrective actions, and planning and implementing those actions.