Nuclear Monitor #922
Jan van Evert
Finland’s Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (Stuk) has delayed granting a licence for a final nuclear fuel repository for another year. The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment has agreed to extend the deadline for the assessment to December 31th 2025. Posiva Oy, the company that is building the repository, has not completed the materials needed for a full assessment. Posiva is jointly owned by Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO) and Fortum, Finland’s two nuclear power plant operators. It submitted the operating licence application to the ministry on December 30th 2021. The licence is for a used fuel encapsulation plant and a deep geologic final disposal facility under construction at Olkiluoto, near the Olkiluoto nuclear power station. The repository, known as Onkalo, is likely to become the first operational deep geological disposal facility in the world and is expected to begin operations in about five years. The licence would run from March 2024 to the end of 2070. Stuk asked for the deadline to be extended again last January until the end of 2024.
Last September, Posiva completed the first stage of a trial run at Onkalo. The full-system trial run began on August 30th to test all equipment and related systems working together for the first time. Posiva has been working for several decades at the Onkalo site to develop a final disposal facility for nuclear waste. In May 2021, it began excavation of final disposal tunnels. The operation of the storage site will last for about 100 years before the repository is closed. That is a remarkable timetable since the world’s uranium supply will run out by the year 2100.Finland has five nuclear power plants in operation: two at Fortum’s Loviisa site and three at TVO’s Olkiluoto. Both sites are located in the south of the country.
