Difference between revisions of "Timeline of nuclear waste management"

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| 1996 || Legal || The 1996 Protocol to the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter (known as the London Protocol) enters into force. Rather than stating which materials may not be dumped into the sea, the convention prohibits all dumping, except for possibly acceptable wastes.<ref name="Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter">{{cite web |title=Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter |url=http://www.imo.org/en/About/Conventions/ListOfConventions/Pages/Convention-on-the-Prevention-of-Marine-Pollution-by-Dumping-of-Wastes-and-Other-Matter.aspx |website=imo.org |accessdate=10 June 2018}}</ref> ||  
 
| 1996 || Legal || The 1996 Protocol to the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter (known as the London Protocol) enters into force. Rather than stating which materials may not be dumped into the sea, the convention prohibits all dumping, except for possibly acceptable wastes.<ref name="Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter">{{cite web |title=Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter |url=http://www.imo.org/en/About/Conventions/ListOfConventions/Pages/Convention-on-the-Prevention-of-Marine-Pollution-by-Dumping-of-Wastes-and-Other-Matter.aspx |website=imo.org |accessdate=10 June 2018}}</ref> ||  
 
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| 1997 || || {{w|Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management}}. ||
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| 1997 || Treaty || The {{w|Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management}} take splace in {{w|Vienna}} as an {{w|International Atomic Energy Agency}} (IAEA) treaty. It is the first treaty to address radioactive waste management on a global scale.<ref>{{cite web |title=Results of Review Meetings |url=http://www-ns.iaea.org/conventions/results-meetings.asp?s=6&l=40 |website=ns.iaea.org |accessdate=29 June 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management |url=https://www.iaea.org/topics/nuclear-safety-conventions/joint-convention-safety-spent-fuel-management-and-safety-radioactive-waste |website=iaea.org |accessdate=29 June 2018}}</ref> || {{w|Austria}}
 
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| 1997 || Facility || A near-surface disposal facility in cavern below ground level opens in {{w|Loviisa}}, {{w|Finland}}. The depth of this is about 100 meters.<ref name="Storage and Disposal of Radioactive Waste"/> || {{w|Finland}}
 
| 1997 || Facility || A near-surface disposal facility in cavern below ground level opens in {{w|Loviisa}}, {{w|Finland}}. The depth of this is about 100 meters.<ref name="Storage and Disposal of Radioactive Waste"/> || {{w|Finland}}
 
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| 1998 (April 22) || || The {{w|Bamako Convention}} comes into force.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Bamako convention |url=https://www.unenvironment.org/explore-topics/environmental-governance/what-we-do/strengthening-institutions/bamako-convention |website=unenvironment.org |accessdate=10 June 2018}}</ref> ||
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| 1998 (April 22) || Treaty || The {{w|Bamako Convention}} comes into force.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Bamako convention |url=https://www.unenvironment.org/explore-topics/environmental-governance/what-we-do/strengthening-institutions/bamako-convention |website=unenvironment.org |accessdate=10 June 2018}}</ref> ||
 
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| 1999 || Facility || The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) becomes operational in {{w|New Mexico}} for defence transuranic wastes (long-lived [[w:radioactive waste|intermediate-level waste]]).<ref name="Storage and Disposal of Radioactive Waste"/><ref>{{cite web |title=Waste Isolation Pilot Plant |url=https://www.energy.gov/em/waste-isolation-pilot-plant |website=energy.gov |accessdate=9 June 2018}}</ref> || {{w|United States}}
 
| 1999 || Facility || The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) becomes operational in {{w|New Mexico}} for defence transuranic wastes (long-lived [[w:radioactive waste|intermediate-level waste]]).<ref name="Storage and Disposal of Radioactive Waste"/><ref>{{cite web |title=Waste Isolation Pilot Plant |url=https://www.energy.gov/em/waste-isolation-pilot-plant |website=energy.gov |accessdate=9 June 2018}}</ref> || {{w|United States}}

Revision as of 13:45, 29 June 2018

This is a timeline of nuclear waste management.

Big picture

Time period Development summary
1950s The use of nuclear reactors for commercial power generation begins in the mid-decade.[1]
2000s Dry cask storage was used in the United States, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Belgium, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Japan, Armenia, Argentina, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, South Korea, Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine and Lithuania.[2]

Full timeline

Year Event type Details Geographical location
1895 German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen discovers X rays.[3]
1896 French physicist Henry Becquerel identifies radioactivity.
1928 Organization The International X-ray and Radium Protection Committee (IXRPC) is founded at the second International Congress of Radiology in Stockholm.[3] Sweden
1946 Organization The United States Atomic Energy Commission is founded.[4][5][6] United States
1950 Organization The International X-ray and Radium Protection Committee (IXRPC) is restructured to take account of new uses of radiation outside the medical area, and is renamed International Commission on Radiological Protection.[3]
1955 – 1957 The United States Atomic Energy Commission requests that the National Academy of Sciences consider the possibilities of disposing of high-level radioactive waste in quantity within the continental limits of the country. This request would lead to a conference at Princeton in 1955 and the subsequent 1957 report The Disposal of Radioactive Waste on Land. The problem posed to the National Academy of Sciences at that time is primarily the disposal of fission products from the reactors used in weapons manufacture.[1] United States
1957 (July 29) Organization The International Atomic Energy Agency is established.
1957 Publication The United States National Research Council publishes the report The Disposal of Radioactive Waste on Land, one of the first technical analyses of the geological disposal option. The publication marks the beginning of a four-decade effort by the national government to identify a disposal site for commercial spent fuel and defense waste (high-level waste).[1] United States
1957 Storage Extensive geological investigations start in Russia for suitable injection layers for radioactive waste, an approach that involves the injection of liquid radioactive waste directly into a layer of rock deep underground. Three sites are found, all in sedimentary rocks, at Krasnoyarsk, Tomsk, and Dimitrovgrad. In total, some tens of millions of cubic metres of low-level waste, intermediate-level waste and high-level waste would be injected in Russia.[7] Russia
1968 – 2002 Approximately 47,000 tonnes of nuclear waste are produced in the period by commercial reactors in the United States.[8] United States
1970 Study A study by the United States National Academy of Science, determines that the federal government should build a permanent geologic repository for high-level nuclear waste.[9] United States
1970s Storage In the United States, direct injection of about 7500 cubic metres of low-level waste as cement slurries is undertaken during the decade, at a depth of about 300 meters over a period of 10 years at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee. It would later be abandoned because of uncertainties over the migration of the grout in the surrounding fractured rocks (shales).[7] United States
1970s Storage The concept of deep borehole disposal of high-level radioactive waste is developed.[10]
1972 Treaty The Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter (generally known as the London Convention) is adopted. [11] United Kingdom
1977 Organization Germany’s Gesellschaft für Nuklear-Service mbH (GNS) is set up. Owned by the country's four nuclear utilities, is both an operator of waste storage and supplier of storage casks.[7] Germany
1977 (April) Legal United States President Jimmy Carter bans nuclear transmutation due to the danger of plutonium proliferation. United States
1978 Facility After five years of pilot plant operation, France's large AVM (Atelier de Vitrification Marcoule) plant starts up, turning cubic feet of concentrated high-level nuclear wastes into solid glass.[12] France
1979 Organization The Deutsche Gesellschaft zum Bau und Betrieb von Endlagern für Abfallstoffe mbH (DBE) (The German Society for the construction and operation of waste repositories) is founded and based in Peine. The company employs approximately 570 employees and is for 75% owned by the Gesellschaft für Nuklear-Service (GNS).[13] Germany
1980 Organization The Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company (Svensk Kärnbränslehantering AB, known as SKB) is created. It is responsible for final disposal of nuclear waste in the country. Sweden
1980 The United States Department of Energy (DOE) proposes the use of mined geologic repositories as the most viable option for disposal of transuranic nuclear waste.[14] United States
1980 Swedish voters, concerned about the dangers of radiation and difficulties of waste disposal, vote in a referendum to close down all the country's nuclear reactors within 30 years and to consider a whole range of alternative sources of power.[12] Sweden
1982 Policy The United States Congress passes the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA), which establishes the Federal government’s responsibility to provide permanent disposal in a deep geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste from commercial and defense facilities.[15] United States
1982 Storage facility The Lanyu storage site, a nuclear waste storage facility, is built at the Southern tip of Orchid Island in Taitung County, offshore of Taiwan Island. It is owned and operated by Taipower Company. The facility receives nuclear waste from Taipower's current three nuclear power plants. However, due to the strong resistance from local community in the island, the nuclear waste has to be stored at the power plant facilities themselves.[16][17] Taiwan
1982 United States President Jimmy Carter, concerned about the possibility of nuclear proliferation, bans commercial reprocessing of spent fuel for private companies, leaving no long-term option for spent fuel storage and reprocessing available to utilities.[9] United States
1983 Policy A Nuclear Waste Policy Act requires the United States Department of Energy to start taking utilities’ spent fuel by Jan. 31, 1998. It directs DOE to begin studying sites for permanent repositories and establishes a schedule for that process.[9] United States
1985 Sweden starts operating a radioactive waste sea transport system. A specially built ship, the M/S Sigyn, carries all radioactive waste between nuclear facilities and the national Central Interim Storage Facility for Spent Nuclear Fuel, located in Oskarshamn in southern Sweden.[18] Sweden
1987 Policy The United States Nuclear Waste Policy Act is amended to designate Yucca Mountain, located in the remote Nevada desert, as the sole national repository for spent fuel and high-level waste from nuclear power and military defence programs.[7] United States
1988 Facility The Swedish Final Repository for Radioactive Operational Waste (SFR) starts operations for disposal of low-level short-lived radioactive waste. The first of its kind in the world, in granite rock 50 meters (164 feet) below the Baltic Sea, the SFR is 60 meters offshore, connected by a tunnel to the site of the Forsmark nuclear power plant in central Sweden.[18] Sweden
1988 – 1990 Study In 1988, the United States Board on Radioactive Waste Management convenes a study session with experts from the United States and abroad to discuss U.S. policies and programs for managing the nation's spent fuel and high-level waste. In 1990, the board would publish report Rethinking High-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal, which provides a broad assessment of the technical and policy challenges for developing a repository for the disposition of high-level waste. The report notes that: “There is a strong worldwide consensus that the best, safest long-term option for dealing with HLW is geological isolation…. Although the scientific community has high confidence that the general strategy of geological isolation is the best one to pursue, the challenges are formidable.”[1] United States
1989 (March 22) Treaty The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal is signed. The agreement provides the general framework for the minimization of international movement and the environmentally safe management of hazardous wastes.[19][20][21] Switzerland
1991 (January 30) Treaty The Convention on the Ban of Imports into Africa and the Control of Transboundary Movement and Management of Hazardous Wastes within Africa (Bamako Convention) is adopted by African governments in Bamako, Mali.[22][23][24] Mali
1992 Facility A near-surface disposal facility in cavern below ground level opens in Olkiluoto, Finland for low-level waste and intermediate-level waste.[7] Finland
1995 Legal A parliamentary waste commission report speaks of the "possible existence of national and international trafficking in radioactive waste, managed by business and criminal lobbies, which are believed to operate also with the approval of institutional subjects belonging to countries and governments of the European Union and outside the EU."[25]
1996 Legal The 1996 Protocol to the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter (known as the London Protocol) enters into force. Rather than stating which materials may not be dumped into the sea, the convention prohibits all dumping, except for possibly acceptable wastes.[11]
1997 Treaty The Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management take splace in Vienna as an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) treaty. It is the first treaty to address radioactive waste management on a global scale.[26][27] Austria
1997 Facility A near-surface disposal facility in cavern below ground level opens in Loviisa, Finland. The depth of this is about 100 meters.[7] Finland
1998 (April 22) Treaty The Bamako Convention comes into force.[28]
1999 Facility The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) becomes operational in New Mexico for defence transuranic wastes (long-lived intermediate-level waste).[7][29] United States
2002 Storage After over 30 years of scientific and technological studies, the United States President and Congress approve the Yucca Mountain site as suitable for a repository os nuclear waste.[15] United States
2006 Facility The KURT (Korea Underground Research Tunnel), a cave-type underground research facility, is constructed at the site of the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI), as part of the atomic energy R&D program in Korea. The KURT conducts research on deep geological repository for high-level radioactive wastes disposal.[30] South Korea
2009 Facility The Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company (SKB) announces its decision to locate a mined repository at Östhammar (Forsmark).[7] Sweden
2011 Organization Magnox Ltd is founded as a nuclear waste company. It is responsible for the decommissioning of ten Magnox nuclear power stations in the United Kingdom.[31] United Kingdom
2013 Publication Documentary Journey to the Safest Place on Earth is released. It discusses the huge quantity of radioactive waste and spent fuel rods being stored at various locations on the planet.
2017 Storage France's Areva launches the NUHOMS Matrix advanced used nuclear fuel storage overpack, a high-density system for storing multiple spent fuel rods in canisters.[32] France

Meta information on the timeline

How the timeline was built

The initial version of the timeline was written by User:Sebastian.

Funding information for this timeline is available.

What the timeline is still missing

[1], [2], [3]

Timeline update strategy

See also

External links

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 "Management of High-Level Waste: A Historical Overview of the Technical and Policy Challenges". nap.edu. Retrieved 11 June 2018. 
  2. ↑ OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (May 2007). Management of recyclable fissile and fertile materials. OECD Publishing. p. 34. ISBN 978-92-64-03255-2. Retrieved 9 June 2018. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Clarke, R.H.; J. Valentin (2009). "The History of ICRP and the Evolution of its Policies" (PDF). Annals of the ICRP. ICRP Publication 109. 39 (1): 75–110. doi:10.1016/j.icrp.2009.07.009. Retrieved 12 May 2012. 
  4. ↑ "Atomic Energy Commission - 25 Year Anniversary (1971)". orau.org. Retrieved 29 June 2018. 
  5. ↑ Cleveland, Cutler J. Concise Encyclopedia of the History of Energy. 
  6. ↑ Doyle, James. Nuclear Safeguards, Security and Nonproliferation: Achieving Security with Technology and Policy. 
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 "Storage and Disposal of Radioactive Waste". world-nuclear.org. Retrieved 9 June 2018. 
  8. ↑ Herbst, Alan M.; Hopley, George W. Nuclear Energy Now: Why the Time Has Come for the World's Most Misunderstood Energy Source. 
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 "History of Nuclear Waste Policy". berniesteam.com. Retrieved 29 June 2018. 
  10. ↑ "US seeks waste-research revival". nature.com. Retrieved 10 June 2018. 
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 "Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter". imo.org. Retrieved 10 June 2018. 
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 "NUCLEAR WASTE DISPOSAL: BOLD INNOVATIONS ABROAD INSTRUCTIVE FOR U.S.". nytimes.com. Retrieved 8 June 2018. 
  13. ↑ "Änderung des Atomgesetzes wegen Asse". udo-leuschner.de. Retrieved 11 June 2018. 
  14. ↑ "HIST 3770, Spring 2016: Nuclear West: Nuclear Waste and Utah". exhibits.usu.edu. Retrieved 8 June 2018. 
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 "NATIONAL NUCLEAR WASTE DISPOSAL PROGRAM". thenwsc.org. Retrieved 8 June 2018. 
  16. ↑ "Premier reiterates promise of end to Lanyu nuclear waste storage". focustaiwan.tw. Retrieved 9 June 2018. 
  17. ↑ "Tao protest against nuclear facility". taipeitimes.com. Retrieved 9 June 2018. 
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 "Sweden's radioactive waste management program". U.S. Department of Energy. June 2001. Archived from the original on 2009-01-18. Retrieved 2008-12-24. 
  19. ↑ Coles, Richard; Lorenzon, Filippo. Law of Yachts & Yachting. 
  20. ↑ Wolfrum, Rüdiger; WOLFRUM, R.; Matz, Nele. Conflicts in International Environmental Law. 
  21. ↑ Sands, Philippe; Peel, Jacqueline; MacKenzie, Ruth. Principles of International Environmental Law. 
  22. ↑ Sands, Philippe. Principles of International Environmental Law I: Frameworks, Standards, and Implementation. 
  23. ↑ Kummer, Katharina. International Management of Hazardous Wastes: The Basel Convention and Related Legal Rules. 
  24. ↑ Marr, Simon. The Precautionary Principle in the Law of the Sea: Modern Decision Making in International Law. 
  25. ↑ Italian police close in on 'toxic' shipwreck, The Financial Times, October 21 2009
  26. ↑ "Results of Review Meetings". ns.iaea.org. Retrieved 29 June 2018. 
  27. ↑ "Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management". iaea.org. Retrieved 29 June 2018. 
  28. ↑ "The Bamako convention". unenvironment.org. Retrieved 10 June 2018. 
  29. ↑ "Waste Isolation Pilot Plant". energy.gov. Retrieved 9 June 2018. 
  30. ↑ "Mid- Technical Field Trips". iah2018.org. Retrieved 10 June 2018. 
  31. ↑ "It's all boiled down to this...". magnoxsites.com. Retrieved 11 June 2018. 
  32. ↑ "Areva's space-saving solution for used fuel storage". World Nuclear News. 29 September 2017. Retrieved 9 June 2018. 
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