Timeline of nuclear waste management

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This is a timeline of nuclear waste management.

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Time period Development summary
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.[1]

Full timeline

Year Event type Details Geographical location
1895 German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen discovers X rays.[2]
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.[2] Sweden
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.[2]
1957 (July 29) Organization The International Atomic Energy Agency is established.
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.[3] Russia
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).[3] United States
1970s Storage The concept of deep borehole disposal of high-level radioactive waste is developed.[4]
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. [5] 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.[3] 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.[6] France
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.[7] 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.[6] 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.[8] 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.[9][10] 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.[11] 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.[3] 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.[11] 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.[12][13][14] 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.[15][16][17] 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.[3] 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."[18]
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.[5]
1997 Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management.
1997 Facility A near-surface disposal facility in cavern below ground level opens in Loviisa, Finland. The depth of this is about 100 meters.[3] Finland
1998 (April 22) The Bamako Convention comes into force.[19]
1999 Facility The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) becomes operational in New Mexico for defence transuranic wastes (long-lived intermediate-level waste).[3][20] United States
2002 "There was reported some 47,000 tonnes of high-level nuclear waste stored in the USA in 2002."
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.[8] 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.[21] South Korea
2009 Facility The Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company (SKB) announces its decision to locate a mined repository at Östhammar (Forsmark).[3] Sweden
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.[22] France

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How the timeline was built

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

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What the timeline is still missing

[1], [2]. [3], [4], [5]

Timeline update strategy

See also

External links

References

  1. ↑ 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. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 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. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 "Storage and Disposal of Radioactive Waste". world-nuclear.org. Retrieved 9 June 2018. 
  4. ↑ "US seeks waste-research revival". nature.com. Retrieved 10 June 2018. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter". imo.org. Retrieved 10 June 2018. 
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "NUCLEAR WASTE DISPOSAL: BOLD INNOVATIONS ABROAD INSTRUCTIVE FOR U.S.". nytimes.com. Retrieved 8 June 2018. 
  7. ↑ "HIST 3770, Spring 2016: Nuclear West: Nuclear Waste and Utah". exhibits.usu.edu. Retrieved 8 June 2018. 
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 "NATIONAL NUCLEAR WASTE DISPOSAL PROGRAM". thenwsc.org. Retrieved 8 June 2018. 
  9. ↑ "Premier reiterates promise of end to Lanyu nuclear waste storage". focustaiwan.tw. Retrieved 9 June 2018. 
  10. ↑ "Tao protest against nuclear facility". taipeitimes.com. Retrieved 9 June 2018. 
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 "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. 
  12. ↑ Coles, Richard; Lorenzon, Filippo. Law of Yachts & Yachting. 
  13. ↑ Wolfrum, Rüdiger; WOLFRUM, R.; Matz, Nele. Conflicts in International Environmental Law. 
  14. ↑ Sands, Philippe; Peel, Jacqueline; MacKenzie, Ruth. Principles of International Environmental Law. 
  15. ↑ Sands, Philippe. Principles of International Environmental Law I: Frameworks, Standards, and Implementation. 
  16. ↑ Kummer, Katharina. International Management of Hazardous Wastes: The Basel Convention and Related Legal Rules. 
  17. ↑ Marr, Simon. The Precautionary Principle in the Law of the Sea: Modern Decision Making in International Law. 
  18. ↑ Italian police close in on 'toxic' shipwreck, The Financial Times, October 21 2009
  19. ↑ "The Bamako convention". unenvironment.org. Retrieved 10 June 2018. 
  20. ↑ "Waste Isolation Pilot Plant". energy.gov. Retrieved 9 June 2018. 
  21. ↑ "Mid- Technical Field Trips". iah2018.org. Retrieved 10 June 2018. 
  22. ↑ "Areva's space-saving solution for used fuel storage". World Nuclear News. 29 September 2017. Retrieved 9 June 2018. 
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