Timeline of nuclear waste management
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This is a timeline of nuclear waste management.
Contents
Big picture
| Time period | Development summary |
|---|
Full timeline
| Year | Event type | Details | Geographical location |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1895 | German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen discovers X rays.[1] | ||
| 1896 | French physicist Henry Becquerel identifies radioactivity. | ||
| 1928 | The International X-ray and Radium Protection Committee (IXRPC) is founded at the second International Congress of Radiology in Stockholm, Sweden.[1] | ||
| 1950 | 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.[1] | ||
| 1957 (July 29) | The International Atomic Energy Agency is established. | ||
| 1957 | 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.[2] | Russia | |
| 1970s | 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). | United States | |
| 1977 | 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.[2] | 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.[3] | France |
| 1980 | 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.[4] | 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.[3] | 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.[5] | 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.[6][7] | Taiwan |
| 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.[8] | Sweden | |
| 1987 | 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.[2] | United States | |
| 1988 | 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.[8] | Sweden | |
| 1989 (March 22) | 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.[9][10][11] | 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.[12][13][14] | |
| 1992 | A near-surface disposal facility in cavern below ground level opens in Olkiluoto, Finland for low-level waste and intermediate-level waste.[2] | Finland | |
| 1996 | "1996 Protocol to the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter" | ||
| 1997 | Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management. | ||
| 1997 | A near-surface disposal facility in cavern below ground level opens in Loviisa, Finland. The depth of this is about 100 meters.[2] | Finland | |
| 1998 (April 22) | The Bamako Convention comes into force. | ||
| 1999 | Facility | The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) becomes operational in New Mexico for defence transuranic wastes (long-lived intermediate-level waste).[2][15] | United States |
| 2002 | "There was reported some 47,000 tonnes of high-level nuclear waste stored in the USA in 2002." | ||
| 2002 | 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.[5] | United States | |
| 2009 | Facility | The Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company (SKB) announces its decision to locate a mined repository at Östhammar (Forsmark).[2] | Sweden |
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References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 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.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 "Storage and Disposal of Radioactive Waste". world-nuclear.org. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "NUCLEAR WASTE DISPOSAL: BOLD INNOVATIONS ABROAD INSTRUCTIVE FOR U.S.". nytimes.com. Retrieved 8 June 2018.
- ↑ "HIST 3770, Spring 2016: Nuclear West: Nuclear Waste and Utah". exhibits.usu.edu. Retrieved 8 June 2018.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "NATIONAL NUCLEAR WASTE DISPOSAL PROGRAM". thenwsc.org. Retrieved 8 June 2018.
- ↑ "Premier reiterates promise of end to Lanyu nuclear waste storage". focustaiwan.tw. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
- ↑ "Tao protest against nuclear facility". taipeitimes.com. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 "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.
- ↑ Coles, Richard; Lorenzon, Filippo. Law of Yachts & Yachting.
- ↑ Wolfrum, Rüdiger; WOLFRUM, R.; Matz, Nele. Conflicts in International Environmental Law.
- ↑ Sands, Philippe; Peel, Jacqueline; MacKenzie, Ruth. Principles of International Environmental Law.
- ↑ Sands, Philippe. Principles of International Environmental Law I: Frameworks, Standards, and Implementation.
- ↑ Kummer, Katharina. International Management of Hazardous Wastes: The Basel Convention and Related Legal Rules.
- ↑ Marr, Simon. The Precautionary Principle in the Law of the Sea: Modern Decision Making in International Law.
- ↑ "Waste Isolation Pilot Plant". energy.gov. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
