sa nuclear fuel cycle royal commission mr kevin … · 2017-03-24 · morning. an alternative is...

SA NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE ROYAL COMMISSION MR KEVIN SCARCE, Presiding Commissioner MR CHAD JACOBI, Counsel Assisting SPEAKERS: DR THOMAS COCHRAN, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) (retired) MR TIMO AIKAS, Executive vice president and corporate advisor, Posiva Oy DR SAMI HAUTAKANGAS, Product Manager, Fortum TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS ADELAIDE 9.00 AM, MONDAY, 23 NOVEMBER 2015 DAY 25 PROCEEDINGS RECORDED BY SPARK AND CANNON

.SA Nuclear 23.11.15 P-512 Spark and Cannon

COMMISSIONER: Good morning. We welcome to topic 16, High-Level Waste Storage and Disposal, from the US, Dr Thomas Cochran. Counsel. MR JACOBI: Nuclear power generate produces a range of waste forms, including spent nuclear fuel. Spent fuel from nuclear reactors, however, 5 possesses a range of properties that pose technical challenges for its management, storage and disposal that distinguish it from other lower-level nuclear radioactive waste. Most significantly, spent nuclear fuel is both intensely radioactive and heat generating. Spent fuel acquires those properties due to the fission reactions which occur during the operation of a nuclear 10 reactor, which result in the production of other radioactive elements from the uranium fuel. In addition, elements in the fuel, which are not naturally radioactive, are irradiated and themselves become radioactive. Though some of the products of the fission reactions are short lived, many are 15 notify. They maintain their radioactivity, though they decline slowly, over significant timescales to be measured in the tens of thousands of years. Those characteristics have required the development of specialised techniques for long-term management and disposal of spent fuel. The public sessions on this topic will address a number of those techniques. One option which has been 20 suggested is the recycling of that waste for its reuse as a fuel in so-called fast reactors. This type of reactor has already been addressed in the evidence of Dr Loewen and Dr Lyman before the Commission. The Commission has also received written submissions both advocating and opposing the further investigation of such facilities, and we return to this topic again briefly this 25 morning. A further option of reprocessing and disposing of the waste products from that process as intermediate level waste was addressed last week, particularly in the evidence of Mr Griffiths of ANSTO, and we'll also be addressing that topic this 30 morning. An alternative is the direct disposal of spent fuel in geological repositories. This does not require the fuel itself being transformed before disposal. This technique will be examined in more detail today, particularly in the context of Finland's experience in the siting and proposed construction of a deep geological repository. Later this week, we will also hear from experts 35 with experience with similar processes in both the UK and US. It is important for the Commission to understand that technique and to understand the character of its barrier systems. It is crucial that the Commission understand the techniques used as part of the safety case for those 40 proposed facilities, which are said to offer assurance that the spent fuel will not pose a risk to humans or to contaminate the environment over the relevant timescales. The Commission is also interested to understand the challenges in communicating such assurance to both relevant close communities and the general public. 45


The Commission calls Dr Thomas Cochran of the Natural Resources Defense Council. The NRDC is a large environmental action group based in the United States. It liaises with businesses, policy makers, and other community groups in relation to significant environmental issues, including sustainable energy 5 generation, global warming, and protecting endangered fauna in their habitats. Having retired in 2011, Thomas Cochrane is a consultant to the NRDC. Previously, he was a senior scientist at the NRDC and, until 2007, was director of their nuclear program. He provides advice to both public and private bodies on matters including nuclear energy generation waste and non-proliferation. 10 Dr Cochran continues to serve as a member of the US Department of Energy's Nuclear Energy Advisory Committee and several of its subcommittees, including the Nuclear Reactor Technology Subcommittee, and the Commission calls Dr Thomas Cochran. 15 COMMISSIONER: Dr Cochran, thank you very much for joining us today. Might I start with a question in terms of the fast reactors? I'd like to explore the development of fast reactors concurrently with light-water reactors. What was in the mind of the developers for the fast reactor? Why were they 20 developed concurrently? DR COCHRAN: Well, the fast reactor development dates back, in the United States, to 1944 during the Manhattan Project, and some of the premier nuclear scientists that were working on the Manhattan Project in what is called the 25 Metallurgical Laboratory in Chicago, which has since become Argonne National Laboratory, most of their work had moved out to Hanford and they were looking for what they might be doing after the war ended, and they decided they would get into the business of generating electricity for power, civil use, and at that time they thought uranium was scarce, which it turned out 30 to be they were mistaken, but at the time, in 1944, it was indeed scarce, because very little had been produced, and so they knew from the previous year about the concept of breeding. So they started exploring the concept of breeding plutonium and utilising more 35 efficiently the uranium resource, namely, the more plentiful uranium-238. Now, the Met Lab became, after the war, Argonne National Laboratory and that became the centre in the United States for civilian nuclear power research and development, and so they continued to focus their attention the fast breeder reactor while in subsequent years the country developed, through the naval 40 propulsion program, the light-water reactor concept. But being engineers, they were wedded to this concept of getting the most power, the most energy, out of a gram of uranium, which meant eventually going to a closed fuel cycle, breeding plutonium in the reactor, recycling the fuel, recovering the plutonium and putting it back in the reactor to refuel the reactor. 45


Now, there were about three major breeding concepts that were under development by the Atomic Energy Commission in the United States in the early period, and they eventually focused down on the liquid-metal, fast-breeder reactor as the most likely candidate, and that was in part because 5 the hazards of R&D program had come out of the naval propulsion program (indistinct) in developing that reactor, which was eventually put into the second nuclear submarine, the Seawolf. If you go back to the late 60s, early 70s, when the Atomic Energy Commission 10 - this was their highest priority energy R&D program and because of the amount of money they were spending, it was also the highest priority energy R&D program in the entire US government, and in fact President Nixon went out to Hanford and gave a speech and said this was the best fast breeder reactor with the best hope of meeting the energy needs of the future. Well, in those 15 days, they thought that as they were going to build a lot of reactors, like, 3,000 in the United States - they ran some cost benefit analyses projecting this huge development program, and because they were going to chew up the low-cost uranium reserves, uranium prices were going to increase and this was going to be (indistinct) the light-water reactor fuel very high and the breeder would be 20 competitive. Not only that, because they were going to build so many reactors they were going to be on sort of an industrial learning curve, and the cost of building the reactors in constant dollars was going to come down from about $150 a 25 kilowatt to about $100 a kilowatt, and the small cost difference between a liquid-metal fast-breeder and a light-water reactor would also come down. So these were going to be very economical by about this period of time, by today certainly, but even before then. Now, there were a few flew flaws in their thinking, some because they didn't think of them and others they just had it 30 wrong. First of all, the cost of uranium in constant dollars, the cost of extraction of uranium in constant dollars throughout the world, you can plot that, and I'm referring to the literature and look at the curves. It has not gone up, it in fact fluctuates due to short-term market conditions, but 35 over the long-term the constant dollar cost of uranium extraction has stayed fairly level, and, in fact, gone down slightly. That mimics the cost of extraction of all minerals, virtually all major minerals in the world over the last hundred years. Those data are available also, you can look at how the cost of mineral extraction has behaved over these long periods of time, including oil, 40 and it reflects the fact that the efficiency in the extraction outpaces the depletion of the resource and also the ability to dig for deeper ore bodies. Contrary to the early thinking, uranium prices have not been going up, and in fact you, as a Commission, to the extent that this influences your economic 45


thinking, in my view, you should just include the cost of uranium out for the next 50 to 100 years, it's going to be about the same as it is today. Now, the capital cost of reactors on the other hand in constant dollars in the United States by about a factor of seven or more, and so contrary to getting on a learning curve, because reactors ran into these safety issues and licensing 5 issues - - - MR JACOBI: Sorry, just so we're clear, Dr Cochran, can I just interrupt there. You talked about the capital cost of reactors going up. Are you talking about fast reactors or are you talking about all reactors, including light water 10 reactors? DR COCHRAN: All reactors. I'm talking about light water reactors. They have gone up in constant dollars. The capital cost difference between a light water reactor and a sodium cooled fast reactor have gone up as well, so now 15 when you look at the economics of fast reactors, particularly sodium cooled fast reactors because those are the dominant ones under development, there is absolutely no chance, in my view, that they will ever be economically competitive in the foreseeable future because you will never get to the point where the cost of uranium will increase so much that the fuel cost of light 20 water reactors will go up and offset the very high cost difference between a fast reactor and a thermal reactor, a light water reactor. MR JACOBI: Can I just pick up on something you said then. You talk about the gap in the capital costs between light water reactors and fast reactors, that 25 the gap has increased. DR COCHRAN: Yes. MR JACOBI: I'm just interested to understand what you think is the best data 30 source in order to make that comparison between the growth in capital costs or to what projects should the Commission pay attention in order to understand that. DR COCHRAN: You ought to look at the French program and probably the 35 Russian program. The Russian program is a little difficult because they don't tell you much, and the French program is a little old, but the French Super Phoenix, which was the commercial sized version of their fast reactor, and, mind you, everybody holds out the French, or at least they used to until they started building their latest reactors, held them out as the premier nuclear 40 construction company because they were able to more or less standardise their designs and build a fleet of reactors and run them efficiently. Their Super Phoenix costs more than 20 per cent more than a light water reactor, and I think the Russians, you can find it in the literature, I think you 45


can find it in that report, I draw your attention to fast feeder reactor program history and status, that I co-authored one of the sections. There's some Russian data in there, but basically the cost of sodium cooled fast reactors is a good bit more than light water reactors, and you can see why. In a sodium cooled fast reactor, you have to isolate the sodium from air and water, and you eventually 5 have got to heat the water to create the steam to run the generators and so forth. You have a lot more equipment you've got to build, or details in the construction, to make that operation work, and it simply costs more than a light water reactor. Now, on top of this let's just compare the fuel cycle cost of the 10 two reactors. In a light water reactor, we know what the fuel cycle costs are, with the exception of final disposal. In my view, final disposal is not going to be significantly different between the closed cycle, the fast reactor cycle and the open cycle. I don't think you're going to save much in the fast reactive cycle, it's not going to save much in the final disposal area, but reprocessing, if 15 you go back to the AEC numbers in their cost benefit analysis in the late 60s, early 70s, they thought they were going to be able to reprocess spent fuel for about $35 to $80 a kilogram, depending on whether it's a thermal reactors or fast reactors, and that cost has gone up by more than a factor of 10. 20 It costs now, even if you paid for your reprocessing plant, it would cost you $1000 a kilogram in today's dollars. If you have got to build a plant, and you look at Japanese, and there's probably better examples, but as a $20 billion plant, it would cost you. The cost of reprocessing has gone up by more than a factor of 10. Enrichment cost, which are dominant, you know, for the light 25 water reactor, the once through fuel cycle, the two dominant components are enrichment and the uranium ore costs. Enrichment costs had not gone up in constant dollars, and there's a lot of room still for improvements in efficiency in enrichment technology, so light water 30 reactor fuel costs have not gone up over the decades, but the cost of fuel if you're recycling has gone up by a tremendous amount not only at the reprocessing plant but at the (indistinct) so what you find is all of these nuclear facilities where there are significant safety and national security and proliferation issues, safeguard issues, the costs have gone up. 35 Other areas like mining uranium, the costs have not gone up, so the early nuclear pioneers back in the 40s and early 50s just got it wrong. They thought they were going to need to go to a closed fuel cycle and now, in my opinion, you would never on the basis of economics go to a closed fuel cycle and you 40 will stay find nuclear engineers who are enamoured with the idea of getting the most energy out of a gram of uranium, but that’s not the metric. The metric is to get the least cost electricity, not the – when you mine uranium in Australia there’s lots of minerals in that ore that you don’t recover. You don’t try to get the most minerals out of the ore and to be most efficient in recovery of 45


minerals you try to do things economically and so you should dismiss these claims or these arguments that we need to close the fuel cycle in order to use the uranium more efficiently. If you do that you will buy electricity at a higher price. 5 MR JACOBI: Dr Cochran, I actually want to come back to that in just a moment, but there was one thing I wanted to ask you before we got there and that was the Commission has been urged to think about this particular class of reactors and I’m just interested to understand your views with respect to the risks associated with their development, that is bearing in mind what the track 10 record has been with respect to success and failure of their construction and operation. DR COCHRAN: We didn’t cover all the fast reactor programs in this report I cited earlier, but we’ve covered most of them and I’ve, at least historically, had 15 some familiarity with the others. Over this period from 44 to today around the world we’ve built something in the order of mid-30s, 35 or so fast reactors and you can study that history and read that report carefully, but I will just kind of summarise my take on it. About half of those fast reactors worked and about half of them didn’t. Because of the sodium issue it’s not a reliable technology 20 and go back and read what (indistinct) has said when he jerked the sodium cooled fast reactor out of the Seawolf – actually he said this before the Seawolf went on sea trials he said, “We’re going to take that reactor out and we’re going to put a pressurised water reactor in the submarine”, which he did because he said, and I’m paraphrasing, but the words are in the report, this 25 technology it’s expensive to build, it’s difficult to operate, you have problems that are expensive to repair et cetera and that has basically characterised the history of this technology and you can look – this technology, again in the US, was the highest priority energy program in the United States and it failed. There’s essentially no fast (indistinct) technology today in the US. There’s 30 some discussion of building a fast reactor as a test reactor because fast neutrons are very good for testing materials, radiating materials. Most of the damage in a reactor is from the fast reactors, not the thermal reactors, so it has some utility as a test reactor, but the program failed in the US, it failed in France, it failed in Germany and it never got off the ground in Italy. It is still the 35 program that is most successful is in Russia. I wouldn’t call it a success, but there’s an entrenched bureaucracy of believers and they’re pushing ahead with the (indistinct) series, BN600 and the 800 and they may go to 1200. The Chinese are getting in, the Indians have been in for ages, it’s really tied to their weapons program and that program has not been successful and I would say to 40 you you pick a country and name me a successful reactor like Rapsodie in France and I’ll name you a failure like the Superphenix. The Superphenix, which was the flag ship, had a lifetime capacity factor of less than seven per cent. The Monde; you know, you can find the earlier reactor in Japan the most successful, the Monde was a failure. It has a lifetime capacity factor, it’s still 45


on the books, of less than one per cent. The US had failures and successes. The EBR-II was a good operating reactor. EBR-I was not, some of the earlier ones were not. The proponents for the technology will argue that if I can identify a successfully develop this technology, you can accept that argument. I would make a different argument. I would look at the whole array of reactors 5 and tell you from a statistical stand point that you’ve got about a fifty-fifty chance that this thing’s going to work successfully irrespective of the economic issues. MR JACOBI: Yes. Can I just pick up a concept and that is is that the 10 Commission has heard of the concept that fast reactors would be desirable because they can be used essentially to use the waste, and that is, to pick up your idea about a closed fuel cycle. I’m interested in where the origin of that concept came from because the origins that you’ve described from the 40s don’t appear to be talking about it in those terms. 15 DR COCHRAN: No, I could be corrected, but I believe that that concept originated here in the United States because we’ve had so much difficulty in developing a geologic repository and the fast reactor community has had a habit over my 40 year career of “you give us a problem, we’ll tell you how the 20 fast reactors can fix it” and it was first, as we discussed, going to solve the energy problems and so forth, but they said, “Look, if we reprocess the fuel from the light water reactors, pull out the transuranic elements as well as the plutonium, long-lived transuranic isotopes, put them back in the fast reactor you can burn them as you do or (indistinct) them as you do the plutonium or 25 change the neutron absorption or whatever and eliminate the very long-lived transuranic elements,” so that idea caught on with the Department of Energy which was (indistinct) kind of research and under the Bush administration, Bush II, George Bush administration, they developed a program called GMAP which was based on – it was an R&D program to develop this concept. What 30 was discovered after people started doing their homework was really to get rid of essentially all the transuranics let’s just talk about an equilibrium just for the reactors that you operated. To eliminate the transuranics, a third of your fleet, roughly, has to be fast reactors. Two-thirds light water reactors, one-third fast reactors to burn the transuranics you're producing in bulk. Well, that's never 35 going to happen because of the economics, for reasons I've discussed earlier. Secondly, you would have to run this cycle for hundreds of years to eliminate the transuranics. That's never going to happen. You would have to have, you know, a planned economy like the Chinese or the Russians or something 40 similar so that you could dictate how many reactors of each type you're going to build and so forth. Finally, even if you did it I would say the following. If you look at analysis of geologic disposal facilities like Yucca Mountain or the Swedish program, the Finnish program, the transuranics don't migrate very far. 45


They are not going to control the risk to future generations. They do control the risk way out into the hundreds of thousands of years, but that's not the main risk. What you are setting up, if you did this process, is a recycling over and over and over, and every time you recycled you're going to spew out at the reprocessing plant, and less so at the MOX plant, radioactive materials into the 5 environment. The health effects from the recycle will be far greater, in my judgement. I don't have any numbers to refer you to, but my sense is that the health effects from the multiple recycles will overwhelm the health effects you would expect from the releases of transuranic elements from the repository than if you did it on a once through fuel cycle. 10 I don't think it makes sense economically, I don't think it makes sense environmentally, and recycling, in any case, carries all of this additional non-proliferation risk. At least it increases the non-proliferation risk certainly in the short-term over the once through fuel cycle. I would just point out that 15 in the R&D program that DOE conducted for looking at various processes for recovering the transuranics with the plutonium, they did this work experimentally in a hot cell in Oakridge. One hot cell. You could use that same single hot cell if you had an R&D program to recover 20 enough plutonium for a weapon, so if you want to go down this route you're basically telling the rest of the world you want to get engaged in this wonderful methodology for lowering the risks, the long-term risks, at a repository, but if I were Iran or some other country I would jump at this. You would create a cadre of experts in plutonium, metallurgy (indistinct) chemistry, you would 25 have hot cells to do the research, and you could do this research and you would reduce the breakup time for obtaining a bomb's worth of plutonium to zero, essentially to zero. A few days, a few weeks. MR JACOBI: We've got two other topics we happy to deal with this morning. 30 The next topic is to deal with the single pass fuel cycle, which I think we've already picked up, which is the single pass MOX reprocessing, and I think you've already touched on the economics associated with MOX fuel and also the development of reprocessing facilities more generally. I just wanted to pick up your views about whether you think that there are advantages or not 35 with respect to that technology with respect to wastes. DR COCHRAN: I don't think environmentally it makes sense to close the nuclear fuel cycle. I think you can compare an open cycle with direct disposal with, say, the Swedish program with the French program, from just a straight 40 environmental standpoint you're going to get more releases from the reprocessing portion of the program than you will get from the repository, and you will set up an additional non-proliferation risk if you replicate that in a sensitive non-weapon state, plus your fuel costs are going to triple, or something on that order. It's going to be several times higher, so just done 45


build it. MR JACOBI: The Commission has heard, in the course of thinking about the nature of this activity, some suggestions that single pass fuel recycling reduces waste volumes. Do you have a view with respect to that? 5 DR COCHRAN: I think that's an argument you hear often from AREVA with respect to (indistinct) and they will tell you that they can reduce the volume of the waste. Okay, they can reduce the volume of the canister compared to the volume of the spent fuel in the dry cast store, but the volume of the repository, 10 the geologic repository, and this is going to depend on what media you're in, it's not dependent on the size of the waste canister, it depends on the heat loading. If you stick to one recycle, you don't reduce the heat loading at the repository, so you haven't changed your repository requirements, all you have done is changed the volume of the waste canister, at great expense, mind you. 15 You have multiplied the cost of your fuel in order to reduce the volume of the waste. If I went into business, I would be trying to make money by reducing the cost of my fuel and not the volume of the fuel. If I make more money increasing the volume of the fuel, I would increase the volume of the fuel. It's 20 not going to change the repository requirement. MR JACOBI: Putting to one side the volume of that particular waste form, has there been any analysis done that's picked up the additional waste streams that would likely arise from reprocessing in terms of decommissioning wastes 25 and other some such? DR COCHRAN: I don't recall any. I certainly haven't read any myself or studied any. I wouldn't put that in. That's not a high priority, in my scheme of what's important here. 30 MR JACOBI: I wanted to come to the topic of non-proliferation, and we've read a paper that you've worked with Christopher Payne on international leasing of nuclear fuel cycle sites to provide assurance, and I just wanted to pick up your views, first of all, about the importance of multi-lateralism or 35 internationalism associated with controlling proliferation risks. DR COCHRAN: As a general matter, it's better to have international ownership of sensitive fuel cycle facilities such as an enrichment plant, because it would simply make it harder for the country to engage in weapon activities if 40 they're a non-weapon state, but I must say there are ways that this is done that are less effective than others. You know, the IEA has made a major effort to develop a stockpile of low-enriched uranium. It frankly didn't have any impact on Iran. The Russians have sold part of their enrichment complex to the Kazakhs so it's, in effect, an international enrichment. It hasn't had any 45


non-proliferation impact. So, you know, if I were looking at a - countries in the Middle East, you now have the UAE building reactors with the help of the Korean - I mean, the Korean reactors. You know, there was a US peaceful uses agreement with the 5 UAE permitted them to go forward where the UAE says they won't engage in enrichment or reprocessing unless somebody else in the area does it. It would be certainly preferable if any country in the Middle East that was going to engage in enrichment did so - the safest alternative, if they wanted to get in the enrichment business, would be to have part ownership in an enrichment plant 10 in a weapon state, for example, in the United States or in France, or wherever. Not as safe, but better would be if their own enrichment plant were multinational and if it were sited in their country. The proposal that Chris Paine and I made was to say it sort of followed the - there was a program in the 15 US following the Three Mile Island accident where the utilities outside of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission created an entity to sort of trade information on safety issues. So what Chris Paine and I tried to do is argue for the principal owners in the uranium business and in the reprocessing business to set up a program outside of the IAEA. You won't take away any of the functions of the 20 IEA, but put another layer together that would provide more international non-proliferation security than is currently provided by the IEA. If you look at the uranium case, you would argue that the IEA safeguards, by themselves, are not capable of providing a timely warning at a large 25 enrichment plant in Iran, but what we proposed was we'll create what we called nuclear hours. The country would turn over the footprint to the plant site to this international consortium and they would add a layer on top of what the IEA does, a security system, and the country or the operator of the plant would comply with their requirements in addition to the state requirements and IEA 30 requirements, and those requirements could be pretty tough. And so that's sort of what we were trying to propose, and we said if countries like Australia, Canada, Kazakhstan, the big uranium producers, together with countries that are now big in the enrichment business, like The Netherlands, 35 France, Germany, they have to put this together and then go out to the world and say, "You're either in the club or you're out of the club. If you're in the club, you've got to comply with the club rules, which has all of this additional security apparatus. If you're out of the club, we're not going to do with business with you." So that's the general framework. It tries to do something 40 that the IEA is incapable of doing, but do it outside of the IEA framework but, you know, working with the IEA, but it takes some leadership of a country like Australia. MR JACOBI: I just want to pick up on this distinction between why you 45


consider that it would be necessary to develop a different concept as opposed to build on the existing safeguards arrangements. DR COCHRAN: Because if you just look at the way the IEA works and behaves and addresses problems, you see that the current system is incapable 5 of providing a timely warning at bulk handling, sensitive facilities, and by that I mean uranium enrichment plants, large reprocessing plants, and (indistinct) each of those plants, the uncertainty in the inventory difference during the inventory period, the two stated deviations in sort of - if you plotted inventory differences over a long period of time and you made a distribution, and asked, 10 "What is the width of that distribution?" the uncertainty is larger than a weapon's worth of plutonium. So even if the inventory difference were zero or negative, you still don’t have any evidence that the physical security system is working. 15 So the IEA cannot handle that function. The political problems, and getting into a facility, shutting it down, and so forth, are rather large. So if you put together a coalition of industrial partners that, for their own benefit and for the benefit of the world, created an additional layer of security, and penalties if you didn't comply, then it would enhance the current system. So I'm not advocating 20 doing away with the IEA. We were trying to build something to supplement it that would give us more security. MR JACOBI: Do you see there being any particular challenges in industrial organisations joining together across each stage in the cycle in order to develop 25 such an arrangement? DR COCHRAN: Well, I would recommend starting in the enrichment business, not try to do enrichment and reprocessing at the same time. Get it up and working, just focusing on enrichment, and then further down the line, you 30 can move to the other areas of fuel cycling. My preference would be to shut down the other areas of the fuel cycle, because I think the reprocessing doesn't have any merit from an economic, environmental or non-proliferation risk stand. 35 COMMISSIONER: Dr Cochran, I think that answers our questions. I thank you very much for your forthright evidence. It's been very useful for us to think through the various issues that are on the table. DR COCHRAN: Well, thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure, and I 40 must say, the reception now is much better than when we started. COMMISSIONER: Thanks, Dr Cochran. We'll adjourn until 15.30. DR COCHRAN: And I told your colleagues that my wife and I had a vacation 45


in Australia and it was lovely. COMMISSIONER: Good. MR JACOBI: Thank you. 5 DR COCHRAN: It's a great country. COMMISSIONER: Please come back. It's cheaper now. 10 DR COCHRAN: Yes, all right. We will. Thank you. COMMISSIONER: Cheers. DR COCHRAN: Goodnight, or good day. 15 ADJOURNED [9.52 am] RESUMED [3.30 pm] 20 COMMISSIONER: At 15.30 we'll resume on the topic of high level waste storage disposal. Counsel. MR JACOBI: Posiva is a Finnish organisation responsible for the final disposal of spent nuclear fuel from nuclear reactors operating in Finland. 25 Mr Timo Aikas, since being employed by Posiva from its establishment in 1995, retired in 2014, having held the positions of executive vice president and corporate advisor. He holds tertiary qualifications in engineering geology and has worked in various aspects of geological disposal of spent nuclear fuel for over three decades, including site selection and the design and development of 30 the Underground Rock Characterisation Facility, disposal facility and counter-system capsulate the spent fuel. Mr Aikas continues to provide consulting services to a range of clients. Dr Sami Hautakangas is a product manager in the nuclear expert services at 35 Fortum. Having commenced work at Fortum in 2007, he has held several roles, including manager, Nuclear Waste Research and Development, and department head, Nuclear Waste Technology. Dr Hautakangas obtained his doctorate in engineering physics from the Helsinki University of Technology in 2005, and the Commission calls Mr Timo Aikas and Dr Sami Hautakangas. 40 COMMISSIONER: Gentlemen, thank you very much for joining us. I might start with talking about the management of spent fuel in Finland. I'm not sure how we're going to tag team this, but I'm sure we'll work it out. Who is responsible for the management and the storage of waste? 45


MR AIKAS: Well, that's a question which we decided in Finland very early on, at the same time reactors were started in 1978. The government had discussed this issue with power companies and the government made a decision in 78 that those who actually produced the waste shall be responsible 5 for all actions for safe management of their wastes, and that was the decision, the consequences of which were embedded first in the operation licences of the first reactors, and later on it became a requirement in the Nuclear Management Act which became effective in 1988. So basically the law says in Finland that those who actually produce the waste shall bear responsibility for safe nuclear 10 waste management. COMMISSIONER: Okay. Obviously the following question there is: how was the decision taken for the spent fuel to be disposed of? What was the process there? 15 MR AIKAS: Well, disposal of spent fuel was not really the issue 40 years ago, if you like, because the world was going to towards the reprocessing of spent fuel, and the government actually said that the first option should be to ship the spent fuel abroad so that there would be no return waste back to 20 Finland, and the important (indistinct) operates the Loviisa power managed to have this kind of agreement with the Soviet Union, and later with Russia, so that the spent fuel was returned to this country so that nothing came back, which fulfilled the origin obligation. 25 PBO, another power company, didn't manage to get this kind of agreement, because the world had noticed that reprocessing was much more complicated as presumed in the beginning, and the price of reprocessing was growing and during the late 70s the price of uranium was going down. So actually the few reprocessing companies wanted to ship the high level waste and the low 30 intermediate level waste back to Finland and this didn't fulfil the obligation. So the government had said that there were would be a second option, which was to consider the directly spent fuel if these arrangements would not be possible, and this policy decision was made in 1983, and later on the Ministry then made several decisions on the way when things proceeded. 35 And then, during those years up to 91, the Soviet Union collapsed and disappeared and Finland started to become a member of the European Union. So the government, together with parliament, they changed the Nuclear Energy Act, which actually today prohibits the export and import of wastes and says 40 that all nuclear waste, including spent fuel, shall be safely disposed by a permanent manner in Finland. MR JACOBI: I'm interested to pick up the somewhat unique characteristic of the Finnish example is that the power companies themselves are involved in 45


the process of finding a site and developing the program for the disposal of fuel. I'm interested in the nature of the decision that was made that led to that particular result as opposed to having a centralised facility. MR AIKAS: Well, during the late 70s there was a discussion about a state 5 would actually establish an organisation to take care of nuclear waste management, but that was pretty soon abandoned, because the work with nuclear waste management is closely related to the operation of the power, because when you take care of waste you have to know (indistinct) type of waste and the characteristics of waste, and so forth. So people at the time who 10 were the decision makers, they thought - and this is, to my understanding, a very wise decision - that this relation with waste, technically, scientifically, is kept with the nuclear power companies who actually produce. So then it's the most convenient way to confirm and assure that all aspects will be taken into consideration. 15 MR JACOBI: In terms of the development of such a facility, I'm interested to understand what the legal requirements are that are imposed in Finland in order to be able to construct and operate a spent fuel disposal facility. 20 MR AIKAS: Well, would you like to answer some - - - MR HAUTAKANGAS: Yes. Well, I can take this one. In principle, the Nuclear Energy Act includes this kind of decision in principal, DIP, process where this includes that government approves DIP to the applicant in the very 25 early stage of the process, in the beginning of the process, and in order for government to do this decision, there are a couple of important statements to get: one is from the municipality of the facility so that the municipality has veto rights to this DIP; the other important factor is that you need to have a positive resolution from the safety authority, STUK, in order to go forward in 30 order to have this DIP from the government, and once the government has made the decision, it's the parliament who approves this decision. MR JACOBI: Could you explain how much information needs to be able to be provided with respect to the concept in order for a DIP to be granted? It's 35 not a construction licence or an operation licence application, as I understand it. How much information needs to be provided at that stage? MR HAUTAKANGAS: Well, I think one of the important aspects is that the environmental impact assessment is one crucial part of this DIP process. So 40 this alone is quite big work in order to understand the environmental impacts from the facility. This also includes social impacts, this environmental impact assessment. MR JACOBI: How much must the concept of the particular design of the 45


facility be laid out at that time? MR HAUTAKANGAS: That of course depends on what kind of concept the applicant is planning to go forward. Quite often you might have quite good understanding in the really early stage, what kind of a power plant will be 5 established, but the planning is more or less in concept show level. You cannot have at that stage really (indistinct) MR AIKAS: May I add something? 10 COMMISSIONER: Yes. MR AIKAS: Well, including the local municipality, the Finnish authority for radiation and nuclear safety, abbreviated STUK, they have also a veto right. The kind of level of depth of technical design and the assessment is depending 15 on the safety appraisal of STUK which (indistinct) will ask STUK to do in the case of the position in principle. There are no formal requirements of the level of conceptual design at this phase, but it has to be sufficient to that degree that STUK can make the safety appraisal and evaluate that the proposed facility, whether it's a reactor or a nuclear waste facility or whatsoever fulfills all the 20 requirements of the safe facility in terms of the structure, systems and the operation. This is very important also in this phase, so that this authority has a particular position in this decision making phase. MR JACOBI: I just want to pick up about how the program's implementation 25 was proceeded with, with respect to the geological disposal facility in Finland, and I think we've got a slide that picks up the plan. This is slide number 8. I'm just wondering perhaps whether, first of all, we can pick out the DIP aspect to that process. Could you explain where the DIP occurred in the context of the other steps in that particular program? 30 DR HAUTAKANGAS: Can we see the slide? MR AIKAS: Sorry. This is the normal schedule or program, if you like, which was planned in Finland in the early 80s when we planned this step-wise 35 approach for site selection and construction (indistinct) operation of the spent fuel repository in Finland. As you can see, the position in principle is made at the stage when the site was selected in the process between 99 and 2001, so that the earlier phases were more like scientific and technical going from the (indistinct) site candidates and obtaining information (indistinct) in the concept 40 and making the safety assessments. Then after a careful and detailed characterisation of four candidate sites, this application for position in principle was submitted in the spring of 1999 after the assessment process was completed, and that was taken in 1997, 1999. In 45


one of (indistinct) impact assessment report is a vital report because that has to be an addendum to the application, so it's a very lengthy process and it took two years for government to review our application and then come to a conclusion and make a decision. 5 MR JACOBI: I'll come to the issues of sighting in due course, but I'm interested at the moment to understand how rigidly were those phases laid out in terms of those that were involved in making the decisions? I notice that it's described in a series of phases, but was there a rigid structure that you followed, or how was it that particular structure emerged or developed? 10 MR AIKAS: In the history books, we said that we were lucky to stage the cases as they were, but some - - - DR HAUTAKANGAS: Yes, I think that one description of this phase were 15 made in the decision in 83 by the government where it was laid for the first time for the general timetable for the whole process. In that decision, it was said that the site selection should be done by the year 2000, and the operation of the facility should start in 2020. There was also a timetable for handover of the application for construction licence which was planned to do in 2010. 20 MR JACOBI: Was there anything else that was laid out? We've heard from many people they've had timetables where the timetables weren't realised, and I'm just interested in terms of the things that were done was there anything else specifically that was laid out from the start that you were clear that had to be 25 done in a particular way? MR AIKAS: Yes, today this appears the government made the decision in 1983 on this program on these stages, but of course there was a consultation between the (indistinct) and the government and indeed the issue was in 1982 30 when this program was laid out and submitted as part of the renewal of (indistinct) operational licence application for working with reactors, so actually this program was very carefully planned so that it's a stage-wise process. In 2000, we thought that we might be ready and collected enough scientific and technical information to make the site selection. 35 The 2020, which was set for the start of the operation, came from the (indistinct) because it has to be cooled down enough before it can be (indistinct) and the calculations at the time for that spent fuel basically showed that four peak years would be ample time for cooling period, so it was a kind of 40 summary of many issues coming from the technical side, the preparedness, because you have to remember in the early 80s we didn't have too much resources either to conduct these investigations and characterisation work. The competencies have to be developed also in parallel with the program, 45


because Finland was very new with nuclear power in the early 80s because the power plants had been started between 77 and 80. MR JACOBI: I noticed in the slide there's a reference to the regulator, STUK, having been engaged in work from about the mid 80s, and I'm just interested to 5 understand what was the framework in which interactions were occurring between the power company (indistinct) and STUK at the period of time before there was in fact a licence application or a decision in principal? MR AIKAS: If I may answer this? When this decision in 1983 was taken by 10 the government, basically the framework for the program was set (indistinct) site selection 2000 into operation (indistinct) around 2020, so the government also required power companies to submit every year a research plan for the activities which are going to be taken, and this was an annual plan. Today it's a three year plan, so power companies are trusted today more than at the time. 15 The government gave the task to their expert body, STUK, to review the research plan not only for the coming access but also the results and prove the conclusions where we are actually (indistinct) our conclusions (indistinct) when there was a major step in the program, STUK always conducted a larger review of the results. 20 COMMISSIONER: Timo, can I just butt in fort a minute. Could that timeframe be safely compressed? Say, for instance, it only took 30 years to cool the spent fuel, I'm just interested to understand if you could compress the timeframe and, if so, what do you think would be achievable now that we have 25 a lot more knowledge and technology available. MR AIKAS: Yes, sure. Not only Finland but also many countries, they have conducted research into the final disposal and it’s obvious that today we know better what issues are the most important in terms of the geological 30 environment for the waste, for the (indistinct) whatsoever and of course this concept (indistinct) can be made (indistinct) the important issue to understand is that each repository is a kind of first of a kind because it will be implemented in a particular (indistinct) a particular site, so that the concept has to adopt the features of the geological environment of the particular site, but this R&D 35 phase most likely can be made today much faster than we make in Sweden and Finland, so that if this – let’s say these lessons learned can be used so (indistinct) can be different. The cooling of the spent fuel of course is what it is, it can’t be helped. 40 COMMISSIONER: Yes. MR JACOBI: I’ll come to deal with what I think is on the slide as phase 4 as we go through some of the other slides. I’m just interested to next understand for what amount of waste. You indicated that you could not import waste in to 45


Finland and I’m just interested to understand for what volumes of waste is this particular repository being planned? MR HAUTAKANGAS: At the moment the cross-section (indistinct) is now granted for 6500 tonnes of uranium and in addition to that (indistinct) has also 5 studied possibilities for up to 12,000 tonnes of uranium, but in the very beginning of this era there was of course much more smaller amounts in plants because it was only including the waste from (indistinct) reactors. MR JACOBI: The figure that you’ve mentioned is that capable of addressing 10 all of the spent fuel from Finland’s current nuclear plants? MR HAUTAKANGAS: Yes. MR JACOBI: Does the figure include the potential – we understood that 15 there’s a – I think it might be a sixth reactor proposed to be constructed in Finland. What’s it’s capability to address volumes of spent fuel from those reactors? MR HAUTAKANGAS: In principle I guess the 12,000 tonnes includes also a 20 couple of new reactors as well to the existing operating units, but on the other hand (indistinct) has now made research for owners only, so at the moment the idea is that the repository will operate only for owners waste. MR JACOBI: Sure. 25 MR AIKAS: Could I add a comment? We also have to remember not only the number of reactors which is important, but the operational lifetime of the reactors has been prolonged, so in the beginning the reactors were supposed to operate only for 25 to 30 years, but today the reactors will operate 50 or 30 60 years and this may be even longer, so this (indistinct) significantly contributes to the (indistinct) waste, but on the other hand the burn up of the spent fuel has increased, so that decreases to some extent (indistinct) and so that this is a big complex issue. 35 MR JACOBI: I will come in detail to the particular elements of the barriers that are part of the repository concept, but I just want to come at the present time in very simple terms for you to explain to the Commission what the repository concept is. I think we’re going to bring up a slide, slide number 5. 40 MR HAUTAKANGAS: Yes, so in the slide you can see there is mainly four main barriers to seal the radioactive nuclides from the nature or from the environment and the first one is the disposal canister. In the disposal canister you have an iron cast inlet where you put the spent fuel and this iron cast is covered with copper, copper capsule, and this canister is then placed in the 45


deposition hole in the deposition tunnel and the canister itself it’s surrounded by a bentonite buffer and after all - when the canister and bentonite has been put in the depositional hole the whole tunnel itself will be packed with the back fill blocks and finally the fourth barrier would be the bedrock itself. 5 MR JACOBI: I just want to pick up in terms of the repository concept we’ve understood something from our reading that there’s a Swedish concept. I’m just interested to understand the origins of the Finnish concept that’s been used in relation to what’s been done in Sweden. 10 MR HAUTAKANGAS: In principle you can say that because of this (indistinct) Sweden company SKB and this is done in cooperation (indistinct) and SKB has done this in cooperation, so the both companies have the same concept, yes. 15 MR JACOBI: I’ll come back to dealing with each of the barriers in due course, but the Commission is concerned to understand the siting process and perhaps we can turn to that. We’re just interested to understand what was the siting process that was used for the repository and how it ended up at the location that was ultimately selected in 1999? 20 MR AIKAS: If I may explain the facts of the siting process. First of all the only choice we have in Finland is a (indistinct) crystalline bedrock, which is very old and the bedrock has (indistinct) shield as we call it, has undergone several phases of (indistinct) during this time and typically our bedrock 25 structure tectonically is broken down to a kind of (indistinct) in which the large (indistinct) break the bedrock to large blocks of rock and inside these blocks you can find very good quality (indistinct) rocks in terms of construction and also in terms of the (indistinct) at the sufficient depth of bedrock and the approach we selected in 1982-83 of locating the potential site (indistinct) 30 investigation was a kind of tectonic approach. To locate these large blocks the size of 700 square kilometres and by more careful studies looking into them and locating these potential sites and this approach indeed produced lots of candidate areas and in the process (indistinct) 85-86 we contacted municipalities where these kind of sites actually were located and identified 35 and sent a letter to each community asking for their interest to discuss and that process with the communities led to a kind of volunteer number of communities and with more detailed and careful discussions with the communities we were able to pick five sites in 1987 for practical (indistinct) including the field investigations. 40 MR JACOBI: How did you move from the mini mini sites, that is, as I understand it, you identified more than a couple of hundred potential areas where the facility could be sited. How did you move from that to the five particular locations? What were the bases for choosing between them? 45


MR AIKAS: First of all, Finland is a fairly large country, not to compare to your country, but still in European dimension a large country, but we are only five million people, so we have lots of forests and wilderness where nobody lives. Because this approach was entirely geological, so quite many sites were 5 in such areas where there are very poor roads so there is no possibility for heavy transportation of spent fuel (indistinct) or there is no industrial infrastructure, or there would be no sufficient population for running a facility, so when taking that into consideration this is what we call "other criteria" than geological. 10 We kind of were ruling out a great number of these potential candidates. Then of course when we were coming to a smaller and smaller numbers of these potential candidate sites, the attitude of the locality was pretty important because we knew that the local community has a veto right at the end when we 15 are proposing the site, so we were mostly looking at those communities with (indistinct) other criteria which were also positive in their attitudes at that time to possibly accept the repository within their area, so it was a kind of very close consultation of the communities at the time and the public participation in that sense because everything was open and discussed with the elected council of 20 the community, with local politicians. MR JACOBI: You've spoken of the right of veto that is held by the community. Is that the right of veto that is to be exercised at the point of the decision in principal? 25 MR AIKAS: Yes, that happens when the application presents that the potential candidates or potential candidate, so the process of the decision in principal the government has to ask the community whether they accept it or not, and this is fully political decision. When making this veto decision, they 30 don't have to make any arguments why they do it, it's just sheer political decision making. MR JACOBI: I think the slide picks up the idea of there being a preliminary site characterisation and a detailed site characterisation. I'm just wondering 35 perhaps whether you can just explain just in very broad terms the distinction between those two phases. MR AIKAS: Preliminary characterisation concentrates more on the structure of the bedrock, because if we're looking at the important issues in terms of the 40 disposal, so crystalline fracture of bedrock which has some (indistinct) in hydraulically active fractures is fairly simple in terms of the (indistinct) which are taking place. If one approaches (indistinct) chemical interactions between the crystal and rock and the (indistinct) but locating a repository and looking at how it (indistinct) the structure of the site is pretty important. 45


Therefore, in the beginning we were looking at the fracture zones and the general fracturing of the site and the conditions of hydrochemical conditions in general. In the detailed case, when we had picked up a few sites then we were looking in more detail at the properties of these fractures and what kind of 5 properties the hydraulically active fractures have, what is exactly the picture of the hydro chemistry. The variable hydrochemical conditions are the key for safe disposal, and especially that the conditions are reducing so that there would be no oxygen present in the ground water system. 10 It's a level of detail which is a more important distinction between two phases because we need this detailed information to make the decisions of the (indistinct) site specifically, and also about the (indistinct) of the repository and then of course the safety assessment. 15 MR JACOBI: Was the information that you collected at the time of those characterisation analysis, was that made available to the municipalities for the purposes of them making decisions? MR AIKAS: Yes, all the time. We had local offices at each community and 20 these were open for public, and there were exhibitions on our work and we presented results. We publicly published everything, so we had the kind of report (indistinct) the scientific rules of publishing science, although it's scientifically maybe called a grey area, but still its purpose was to make everything open so that whoever would come and review our results and give 25 his or her criticisms. MR JACOBI: Did those interactions with the municipalities throw up challenges that you hadn't expected or issues that you needed to resolve that hadn't arisen specifically in the technical process? 30 MR AIKAS: Yes, they had because pretty much the issues involved with, for instance, have we ignored the ore potential of the area, because what you would like to have in geological disposal is that type of bedrock which is as general as possible that it would have no future use for anything, but very often 35 people came and said that, "Okay, we have found some ore minerals there and there, and you have neglected that. Have you considered that this site might not be suitable at all?" Then we directed some work to go and look at some (indistinct) mineral that they had found and did our work, so it had an influence. 40 MR JACOBI: Can I move from there. I want to deal with what was phase 4, I think, on the slide and look at what was done once the particular site was selected, what was done for the purposes of further site confirmation after 2001. 45


MR AIKAS: Yes, if I may explain. The original requirement the sighting process to comprise the four phases, in which we would study the selected site very carefully and assess that our conclusions and results hold good from the site investigation phase. Already in the program report which was drafted in 5 1982 and submitted to the government as an appendix of the (indistinct) operation licence application, already that report stated that this confirmation stage would be conducted in such a way that the underground facility would be constructed at the selected site, so this kind of idea was already put out in 1982-83 when the problem started. 10 All the time through the program, we thought it's a good idea, and once the decision in principal was made we also proposed in the application that if the decision will be positive the (indistinct) would go underground for testing characterisation and demonstration. When discussing the decision in principal, 15 the parliament also said in the statement of one of the committee that (indistinct) go underground to continue the program so that everybody agreed that this is a good idea. The purpose of this underground work was that we had to acquire very detailed information for detailed design of the facility, especially for the systems design, and also we had to collect detailed 20 information (indistinct) because it's terribly difficult to collect representative groundwater samples from the ground surface with the help of deep bores, and to assess the favourable chemical environment has been one of the many issues now under this characterisation work for site continuation. And also one big issue has been rock mechanical behaviour of the (indistinct) water bedrock, 25 because rock mechanics is also an issue which is difficult to cover with the help of the bores when you have to have access to large bases of rock where you actually can see how it behaves (indistinct) the temperature lowering itself. MR JACOBI: It might be convenient at this point, given we're at the point 30 about talking about the facility itself, to actually get you to explain from some images that we've got. Picking up from slide number 12, I think we have a surface view of the facility that was constructed, and perhaps, Mr Hautakangas, you can explain to us what it is we're looking at in slide number 12. 35 DR HAUTAKANGAS: Yes. This is the construction area of the aboveground facilities of Onkalo and the repository, and in the middle of the picture you can see the driving tunnel inside the Onkalo facility and the coming repository. From the access tunnel, right there is a shed for machines and other equipment, and if you go up the green, greyish-- 40 MR JACOBI: Tall building, yes. DR HAUTAKANGAS: Yes, tall building, it's a ventilation building. And then from that to the right side you can see barracks and other - it's just for 45


office purposes. MR JACOBI: Is there in due course proposed to be any other facilities, such as a packaging facility, on that site? 5 DR HAUTAKANGAS: Yes. There will be eventually, when the construction licence has approved and then there will be construction for an encapsulation plant right beside the ventilation building. MR JACOBI: Perhaps just before we move no, in terms of the construction 10 activities and the activities that were carried out for the purpose of the laboratory, were they regulated as if it was a nuclear facility even though, as I understand it, it wasn't being used to dispose of waste? MR AIKAS: Well, yes. Since the decision in principal is the first licencing 15 step, and in our application we had said that once we go underground we would build an access tunnel and shafts for ventilation and systems purposes, but that space would only be used for characterisation, but not disposing of the waste, but that this access tunnel and shafts would be part of the future repository as an access way. So in 2001, the regulator, STUK, made a decision 20 that they will supervise the construction of what we call Onkalo as if it would be a nuclear facility, and so Posiva has been under the kind of nuclear scrutiny after 2001, and indeed, STUK supervised all the construction and all the quality and also safeguarding the facility since 2001. 25 MR JACOBI: I think perhaps if we can then move to slide number 13, I think that might take us onto the driveway, the kerb segment we'd seen previously. Do you have any observations to make there, Mr Hautakangas, in terms of what we're looking at in slide number 13? 30 MR AIKAS: Yes. This is 13. MR JACOBI: Yes. MR AIKAS: This is the access in front of the access tunnel. 35 MR JACOBI: And then perhaps on to slide 14. MR AIKAS: Number 14 is a kind of view from the access tunnel from - it's a few hundred metres depth. So what you see is actually an excavated tunnel; 40 the height is 6.5 metres and it's 5 metres wide. So it's a very large tunnel to our extent, not to compare with tunnels of the mines, but for this purpose, it's fairly large. The size of the tunnel accounts that it would be possible to transport the spent fuel cask containing the disposal canister also down through the access tunnel. That's the dimension requirement. And what you see also in this 45


picture is the bedrock quality, which is quite good, and you can see also that it's (indistinct) dry, so that the volume of Onkalo is very large, but the ingress of water in total is only a few hundred metres per minute, which is a small amount, to the underground excavation of this site. 5 MR JACOBI: If go to slide number 15, perhaps, Dr Hautakangas, you can explain to us what we're looking at in slide 15. DR HAUTAKANGAS: Yes. There's an experiment area to find out - I think there is - yes, a deposition hole can be seen at the end of the tunnel, so this is - 10 as a matter of fact, slide number 16 is from the same tunnel but from a different direction, and this has been in order to make the deposition hole for the canister and to study how to make the deposition hole. MR AIKAS: In addition to that, what has been studies in this particular niche 15 is the effect of elevated temperature of rock, because the rock mechanical analysis showed that there is a possibility of stalling of the walls of the deposition holes due to the stresses created by temperature, and this particular excavation was made to study this phenomenon. What you see also in this picture is that there are lots of reinforcing bolts attached on the roof, and a 20 design like Onkalo is a hundred years, so all the bolts are of stainless steel, which is also the nuclear quality again, you see. MR JACOBI: I was going to come to the chamber, and I was interested to ask whether that's typical. - I understand this is an experimental facility for the 25 purposes of research. MR AIKAS: This is an experiment. MR JACOBI: But is that typical of the type of tunnel facility that's expected 30 ultimately to be constructed? MR AIKAS: No. The typical is slide number 17. DR HAUTAKANGAS: Yes, and as you can see, the dimensions are a little 35 bit different. They're really much smaller, the deposition tunnel itself, and this is - slide 17 is presentation about this - real size deposition tunnel where at the end, the deposition holes will be bored in the bottom of the tunnel. Now there is not any of them in the picture. 40 MR JACOBI: We've already had a discussion about watering ingress. We can actually see a little bit of water in the tunnel that we're looking at there. Is that hydrogeology of the rock being studied? MR AIKAS: Yes. Yes, it has been very carefully studied. There are some 45


fractures which actually produce water in the demonstration tunnel which was excavated for the experimental purposes also, but I guess that the water you see on the floor is not only from the bedrock itself but it remains from the work. You will see that in slide number 17 the floor is very smooth. 5 MR JACOBI: Yes. MR AIKAS: There has been used a mechanical method to even the floor after excavation. When you're (indistinct) heavy packages (indistinct) canisters, we need very even and smooth floor for installation purposes, and one part of this 10 R&D conducted at this underground facility has been to develop these techniques for excavation and mechanical working with the rock to make the installation possible. The part of the water is probably still remaining from the washing all surfaces of the tunnels. 15 MR JACOBI: I want to come to the principles of the design before we move to the barriers and their functions. I just want to come to the principles that they're directed at soothing. I'm just wondering perhaps whether you can explain what are the principles that underpin the design of the repository concept. I think there's a slide that picks this up, slide number 10. 20 DR HAUTAKANGAS: Yes, of course the basic requirement for the safety disposal system is to maintain all the radioactivity and radioactive nuclides inside the facility for the designed lifetime, and this of utmost importance to have. Basically, it's done by developing multiple barriers for this purpose. 25 One of the aspects is that it has to be somehow reliant on the proven technology, so any predictions for the coming you mentioned. It mentions it has to be able to implement in new day technology. One of the concepts is that it should be constructed and operated that the 30 geological conditions will retain their isolation properties. The robustness, of course, always nice to have in order to keep the design understandable and easy to implement. Retrievable concept is also important to have so that if there's any case in future need for pickup the fuel back to the repository up to ground level it should be possible, so this is also included in this concept. 35 MR JACOBI: I'm interested to understand when was the requirement of retrievability. We've heard concepts of geological disposal that don't include concepts of retrievability, and I'm just interested in understanding why retrievability was something that was built-in to this particular concept. 40 MR AIKAS: Actually, the regulatory requirement doesn’t say, "I require retrievability," but it's more like a political issue. When the decision in principal in 2001 was made by the government and ratified by parliament, the politicians wanted that the decision in contains a kind of sentence which deals 45


with retrievability and also the (indistinct) should also in the future look into that the system is retrievable. For instance, when (indistinct) submitted the application for construction licence there was a separate chapter in the application dealing with retrievability and (indistinct) of retrievability, and this specific chapter was required by the decision in principal made in 2001. 5 What (indistinct) it does design a system which is for permanent disposal, and all the requirements are set for permanent disposal, but it wanted, and if future technological development makes it meaningful, so the system is (indistinct) retrievable, it can be retrieved, but no measures are designed to make it 10 retrievable. It is retrievable, but it's very, very difficult. MR JACOBI: We've had a brief description of some of the physical properties that there is, but I want to come to each of them in detail. You've already referred to the copper canisters, and I think we've got an image that 15 picks them up in slide number 7, but could you explain to us the physical properties of the copper canister barrier and the insert? DR HAUTAKANGAS: Yes. As you can see from slide 7, there's a presentation there about a cast iron inlet, and you can see also there in the 20 replica of fuel element sticking out from the inlet, cast iron inlet. This cast iron is just to make the rigidity to the capsule so that it sustains in the repository environment for a long time. MR JACOBI: I gather it provides the separation between the fuel bundles as 25 well within the canister? DR HAUTAKANGAS: Yes, that's true as well. The second element of the canister is, of course, copper capsule which is five centimetres thick and is pure copper, meaning, yes, it's pure copper and oxygen free, making it really 30 resistant for corrosion, so it won't corrode because there is no oxygen anywhere around the capsule. MR JACOBI: I understand that there's some treatment with phosphorus associated with that. Could you explain that? 35 MR AIKAS: Additional phosphorus is made to make the copper material itself more rigid, because copper is very soft so adding a minor amount of phosphorus material so it makes the copper itself more rigid and so it's easier to handle. Before phosphorus we had a small amount of silver, but the 40 phosphorus is better. It's only to make the five centimetre thick copper canister more better to handle. MR JACOBI: I understand there's some specifications with respect to the copper itself in addition to the fact that it's pure copper and oxygen free in 45


terms of the grain size. Can you explain? MR AIKAS: Yes, once the copper billet is cast, so the casting has to be oxygen free so that the billet that is needed originally for manufacturing the copper (indistinct) if you like, there's a special oxygen free copper, and then the 5 billet is taken to a workshop where you can either forge, extrude or pierce and draw the canister, and this working method basically makes the ring size to our desired size, which is 350 micrometres. The original copper material is a big billet, which is about 12 tonnes. The rings are very big, they can be half a metre long and 5 metres in width. So they are more like crystals if you like, 10 and this has to be worked to a desired size to make possible the very good corrosion resistance. COMMISSIONER: In terms of the corrosion resistance, I've seen some readings. There has been some questions about the ability of copper to last for 15 the sorts of period that it will need to last. How did STUK convince itself, or how did you convince STUK, that copper would last sort of for the thousands of years that it needs to? MR AIKAS: Well, to put (indistinct) so first of all the current wall thickness 20 is only 5 centimetres. In the beginning it was 20 centimetres, and then it was reduced to 10 centimetres, but now we know that the robust canister can be 5 centimetres, and only 1.5 centimetres are needed for corrosion purposes, and this is based on very careful corrosion studies in Sweden and Finland and elsewhere during the last two or three decades. Then in the late 70s, there was 25 a question raised in Sweden: can copper corrode under anoxic conditions, and especially, can this corrosion produce hydrogen? Well, this was built in the late 70s, early 70s, and assessed and it's not possible, but then in the early 2000s, this idea jumped back and there were some tests 30 conducted in Sweden, in which small test facilities show that this corrosion under anoxic conditions could be possible and produce hydrogen. And then SKB in Sweden and we in Finland have conducted very careful laboratory studies and put lots of effort in this, and early this year, late last year, the result actually convinced that it's not really a question of corrosion; it's some other 35 phenomenon, which takes place in this test facility under these conditions. So both in Sweden and Finland we can rule out the possibility for corrosion under anoxic conditions, and especially that it doesn't produce hydrogen. MR JACOBI: Just going back to slide number 7, Dr Hautakangas, we can see 40 a lid. I'm interested in how that lid is secured other canister. DR HAUTAKANGAS: Yes. There have been, I think, two main welding systems proposed, and one is the friction welding method, which is quite widely used in aviation technology, and it's a really elegant way to seal the lid. 45


The other is electron beam method, where you can also have a really nice result on the welding, sealing really nicely and tightly the lid on the canister. MR JACOBI: Have you settled on one of the two methods? 5 DR HAUTAKANGAS: Yes. At the moment, I think Posiva has chosen to have this friction welding method as - - - MR AIKAS: Yes. The friction stir method has been chosen for the future now, and the reason is mainly that the grain size of the welding seam is smaller 10 and it's easier to make an inspection. MR JACOBI: I was actually going to come to the inspection. What is the method that's used for the purposes of inspection? 15 MR AIKAS: Well, of course there are ultrasound, radiographic, and then some surface method (indistinct) can't remember the name of the other inspected terms (indistinct) MR JACOBI: I want to come to the physical properties. We addressed a 20 number of the others. I think we've already addressed the bedrock. But you referred to bentonite. Are you able to explain what the physical properties are for bentonite? DR HAUTAKANGAS: Yes. Basically it's a natural clay, which is 25 compressed to design, and the main issue in the clay, this bentonite, is that it is swelling. So under repository conditions, it will melt as well, so that it completes the - - - MR JACOBI: So it will form a seal? 30 DR HAUTAKANGAS: Yes, complete the seal. MR JACOBI: And then you've also referred to backfield blocks. What's a backfield block? 35 DR HAUTAKANGAS: So backfield blocks are used to fill up the deposition tunnel and so not - a backfield block is not intended to be put in - - - MR JACOBI: If we go back to slide 17. 40 DR HAUTAKANGAS: Yes. MR JACOBI: On the next page. 45


DR HAUTAKANGAS: Yes, exactly. This will be filled up with backfield blocks. MR JACOBI: So what are we talking about in terms of the material that composes those blocks? 5 DR HAUTAKANGAS: It's a (indistinct) clay with montmorillonite content. It's also a commercial material. It can be both. MR JACOBI: I understand it that the purpose of each of these barriers is to 10 contain and isolate the radioactive material. I just want to understand, perhaps going from one to the next, what the safety function is of each of those barriers in terms of what it's designed to achieve. So can we go to the copper canister first? 15 DR HAUTAKANGAS: Yes. A copper canister, like already discussed, is to protect the fuel from the corrosive effect of the groundwater, so it's purely for that, and so good corrosion resistance is important to have in a copper canister. Then there is of course, which we already discussed about the phosphorous alloying, was that it should have some kind of mechanical resistance. 20 MR JACOBI: Why was copper chosen as opposed to other materials? MR AIKAS: Well, in (indistinct) they're a shield, as I mentioned, the crystalline bedrock area. We have native copper in our bedrock, which has 25 been found in conjunction with the oil exploration, and what is also important in terms of the selection of copper is that the groundwaters in the bedrock are usually - they have usually a very low sulphide content, because sulphide is poison to copper, and this low sulphide content enables corrode that copper space intact in the bedrock. So what we have to basically guard the copper is 30 to guard it from sulphide. MR JACOBI: In terms of the mechanical strength of the canister, is that a consideration that's taken into account? 35 MR AIKAS: Yes. Somebody mentioned the cast-iron insert, which is basically - it's a (indistinct) cast iron, so it's very strong. Of course the role of the insert is to separate the fuel bundles to prevent the criticality events happening inside the canister, but the main purpose is that we prepare the canister for future evolution in which we have to consider future glaciations, 40 the ice ages, if you like, and in that case, Finland will be covered by a continental ice sheet with a thickness of between two and three kilometres. So the task of the insert is to take care of the mechanical load and hydrostatic load of the increased load you will be increase (indistinct) glaciation, so that's a very important part of the design of the canister, to look into the expected evolution 45


and into the possible changes in the (indistinct) MR JACOBI: I've raised the question of the inspection of the weld and I'm just interested in terms of the controlling of faults in the manufacture of the canister itself. Is that something that's controlled? 5 MR AIKAS: Well, it's a very good question, because when manufacturing the canister components, like (indistinct) lids and the copper canister itself, then we are dealing with non-radioactive environment, so we can use effectively more kinds of inspection methods. These components are defect-free, so to 10 speak, but the (indistinct) will be made once the spent fuel is inside the canister, and the inner lid has been attached, so it's a radioactive environment and everything has to be made remotely controlled, and, therefore, it's very, very important that the welding method is good, and inspection methods can detect any defect which is still remaining. Whether it's a kind of pinhole in the 15 weld or if it's a kind of other defect type which can appear in the weld, in conjunction with the weld. So there has been lots of effort put in the inspection of welding. And today, SKB even claims that there will not be any defects in the weld, but 20 our regulation system starts that there might be some human negligence or other human influenced issues, which might cause and we might have one or two canisters will still have a defect in the welds. Then we have to consider in our safety, long-term safety assessment. 25 MR JACOBI: So, in essence, your safety system requires you to take into account the possibility of a mistake. MR AIKAS: For the time being, but we are very confident that we can assess the inspection methods are able to pick all the defective weld seams away from 30 the production line. MR JACOBI: Can I come to the question of the bench knot? What's the safety function that it serves? Dr Hautakangas? 35 DR HAUTAKANGAS: Bentonite is meant to, like already discussed, to provide an isolation for the canister itself from the water coming from the bedrock to the canister surface, so it isolates the water and, like heard from Timo, the sulfites to enter in the vicinity of the copper surface. And also Bentonite is expanding material, so that's the main mechanical function, is that 40 it will expand and prevent the water in flow. MR JACOBI: Does it have a purpose in the event of providing an additional barrier if there was a failure in the case of the canister? 45


DR HAUTAKANGAS: Of course the whole system works - it's a combination of the safety function of each barrier. So one barrier itself doesn't provide the safety, but it's more or less that the whole system provides the safety. So if one barrier for some reason doesn't work, then the other barrier would take the preventative role of the repository. 5 MR JACOBI: Mr Aikas, I'm just interested to pick up whether there have been studies done to analyse whether it creates or the bench knot contributes to the creation of a more predictable scenario in which the canister operates? 10 MR AIKAS: First of all, we have to remember that the multi-barrier system, the barriers, they are not redundant from each other, but they work in concert, so they support each other. So the basic case what we are looking at is the geological (indistinct) continues to be like it is today, so there is some ground water and the ground water will gradually saturate the (indistinct) swells and 15 actually fills all the (indistinct) around the canisters and limits the movement around the canisters. The only way how the ground water can enter from rock to the canister itself is deteriorate, which is very, very slow process, and also when it reaches the canister surface the temperature will actually drive it away for longer periods of time. 20 This is a very slow process which takes place thousands of years, and once the (indistinct) swells it also makes the environment impossible for microbes to grow because (indistinct) environment they don't get enough energy to grow. This is important because the groundwater usually contains sulfate, and the 25 microbes can, in principle, produce sulfate to sulfite, which could be potentially harmful. The basic scenario with expected evolution as we study (indistinct) it would be very safe, but then of course when we are looking at the longer time periods when the temperature has cooled down and we're going towards the ice ages, so due to the loading of the earth's crust there could take 30 place (indistinct) movements (indistinct) assume to have them in (indistinct) so that if there would be any nature earthquake the size of 7 or 8 on the Richter scale there might be some effects for the repository. These effects have been studied very carefully, whether the fractures would 35 move so much that they would actually influence the canister. In those analysis which have been conducted, it's not only the canister which supposed to be influenced by such an earthquake or fault movements, but each (indistinct) it's also important that there would be a huge amount of glacial melt water with a very low (indistinct) almost like distilled water. At the same time 40 with this bedrock movements, this melt water should go down to the repository level and actually that melt water could then cause erosion of the compacted metal which then would be taken away from the canister (indistinct) and actually the density of (indistinct) would decrease. 45


First, after this process the corrosion for canister could take place and the sulfite could occur on the canister surface. STUK, when they reviewed the safety case which was attached to the construction licence application they also filed - the system is very safe and, if possible, to manufacture the components, as we've said, and install the components, as has been said, and planned and if 5 repository will be closed and sealed as has been planned, the system is very safe (indistinct) MR JACOBI: Could I quickly come just to the safety function of the back fill blocks. I assume they're being used to fill the tunnel, which I assume is for the 10 purpose of contributing to the structural stability of the repository at the point of closure. Do they fulfill any other purpose? MR AIKAS: Yes, they do. Of course the feeling of (indistinct) return if the conditions as close to the prevailing conditions before the excavation is one 15 thing, but perhaps the most critical safety function for a backfield is the key (indistinct) like buffer down in the deposition hole, because once the bentonite starts to swell, it also swells upwards, and if the backfield is not able to keep the bentonite down, it will ooze out from the deposition hole, which again causes the upper part of the canister hole with the bentonite - the density of the 20 bentonite will decrease. So the backfield indeed has an important safety function in that sense. MR JACOBI: So what's the expected length of the effective operation of the barriers in combination at this site? 25 MR AIKAS: Well, wrong question. MR JACOBI: Perhaps I can express it this way around. 30 MR AIKAS: Well, let me explain a bit. Because very often when we talk about the disposal and radiotoxicity of the waste, we look at the spent fuel reprocessing waste, otherwise we tend to look radiotoxicity of the waste, what goes into the repository, but this is not really the issue. The issue is what comes potentially out from the repository. If we look at the different waste 35 types, what comes out is astonishingly similar, because the main problem, if I may so, in the disposal are the fission products and some transuranic element, and twice a week these most harmful elements require different times. Fission products, for instance, they disappear within a few thousand years. In 500 years they already have decayed so much that the gamma radiation is 40 non-existent. But the longer time periods, to get some exposure to these heavy radionuclides you have to eat the spent fuel of the waste or inhale, and in that sense, the effective operation time of each barrier is (indistinct) the canister design basis, 45


if you like, that's 100,000 years, approximately, so that with a good certainty, the canister has to be able to contain the spent fuel for 100,000 years, but it does that very well, and even longer, but the safety assessment, that is always stretched to a longer period, not only looking for, in our case, one ice age period, but several times. So what would happen if there would be several 5 glaciations, because any nuclides like uranium, plutonium and other transuranic elements, they have a very long lifetime as well as the most difficult nuclide higher than 129. So we have to look at very long time periods, and look at how the system 10 behaves as a whole and not so much individual barriers, but their operational life can be in terms of the containment and isolation. I hope that I managed to mix you well. MR JACOBI: Yes. I think you may have answered a better question than I 15 asked. We've spoken a little bit about the studies that were conducted, and I'm interested to get a bit of an understanding about the extent of the analyses that have been conducted on the copper canister, the bentonite, the backfield blocks and the bedrock. 20 DR HAUTAKANGAS: Yes. In principle, Posiva and SKB have been doing their research, concentrating - providing information for the whole system, including all the barriers, and the idea behind all these studies has been the transparency, so that every study and survey can be read by (indistinct) people, and this means that those companies, they have published almost everything 25 which they have surveyed doing this (indistinct) which they have been doing. For example, Posiva has databank easily to access via the Internet, and also SKB has databank, and with those databanks it could be shown and it could be read by everybody who was interested about the analysis. 30 MR JACOBI: So the technical analyses that have been conducted have been made available? DR HAUTAKANGAS: Yes. 35 MR JACOBI: In terms of the research, is there still an ongoing program of research into the relevant barrier methods that we've discussed? MR AIKAS: Yes, very much so, but it's not clear and settled this, what are the material properties and design of the barriers, for instance, and how to 40 manufacture them so that they fulfil all the requirements, but the last step on the way is how to install this multi-barrier system in real conditions so that we can meet the requirements for the installation so that what we can achieve is what is called in our jargon "initial stake, kind of - if you like, it's a last (indistinct) action, if you like, so that when information is made following all 45


the requirements so that the canister sits inside the bentonite as it shall be, the bentonite has been placed in the canister hole as it should be. The canister hole is within (indistinct) of the roundness and the - and it's vertical, and the tunnel fulfils the requirement, and everything is installed as it 5 is, including the massive concrete plug at the mouth of the disposal tunnel. So there we can say that we have reached the initial stake and done everything based on the requirements set, so that we can send the system to its long journey into the future and we know that it's safe. This is what is still left of the R&D (indistinct) 10 MR JACOBI: We've spoken of the studies, but I'm interested to understand, in broad upshot, what those studies have told us about the durability of the barrier. I think you've already expressed it in terms of a period of time, but have they told us anything about the plausibility of particular scenarios 15 potentially emerging? MR AIKAS: So if there are any doubts that the barrier would not function, or if there are some promises, we would have kind of overlooked, so not properly so that we have neglected them. So that means that we have to kind of go back 20 and do more work. For instance, I mentioned the possible junction of the compacted bentonite due to the ionic groundwater. That was kind of a phenomenon in the process which was not well understood until 2004, 2005. And furthermore, more tricky issues has been the possible disturbances, for instance, what construction materials could influence on bentonite. 25 Let's take an example. Together with the Swedes, we were pretty uncertain how ordinary portal (indistinct) would influence the compacted bentonite with the high-pH plume which the concrete might create in the groundwater. So we had two alternatives: either launch a research program for, let's say, the next 30 ten years to look into the poor effects and predictable chemistry parts of the high-pH plume on bentonite or smectite clay. This was one alternative. Another alternative was to start to build up a low-pH concrete, which would not create such (indistinct) because we know that in lower pH conditions bentonite survives fine. So when balancing between these two approaches, we 35 selected the low pH concrete development, because that, with a higher certainty, produces a good result and out of a long term research program with lots of work and still uncertainty how too high-pH plume would influence. The tricky thing in doing this safe disposal is not always technical and develop 40 some new technical solutions. The tricky thing is how to access these technical solutions they are saying, and they are said with long-term. MR JACOBI: The Commission, in the material that it's been reading, has been asked to consider what the potential effect of, say, something like an 45


earthquake might have on such a facility over the long term. I'm interested to understand how you've approached the question of an earthquake, thinking about the effect of that on the potential damage to either the repository or the container. 5 DR HAUTAKANGAS: Yes. Like already discussed about the characteristics of Finnish bedrock, it basically is formed with blocks, and the basic idea that when - we know already that the earthquakes in Finland are quite weak or maximum moderate, meaning that those blocks which - they are loose in fracture zones with each other. So in practice it means that those blocks just 10 slightly move towards each other, and so there won't be any big effect from the earthquakes to these blocks itself. So the idea is that to build the repository and the deposition holes in the areas where you have the - or inside these blocks so that the repository won't be affected anyhow from the mild earthquakes. 15 MR JACOBI: Has consideration been given to the effect of the mechanical cutting of the rock itself and its potential to create faults or fractures in the rock, that is, in the process of actually cutting the tunnels or excavating the driveway? 20 DR HAUTAKANGAS: Yes. The is also - Posiva has made of course a lot of work, so-called EDZs, excavated damaged zones, so that the - as a matter of fact, during the Onkalo construction, Posiva has (indistinct) method in in order to decrease the EDZ effect of the bedrock and to diminish the fractures from the excavation to the repository and bedrock. 25 MR JACOBI: Is it proposed to do characterisation again once the tunnels have been cut in order to determine whether, within those particular tunnels, there are fractures or other breakages or weaknesses in the rock? 30 MR AIKAS: Yes, very much so. So before - because now when the repository construction starts, so Posiva has to characterise the rock volume, where the repository tunnel would be constructed in advance already, and get approval from the regulator to get it constructed. Once the construction proceeds so that the (indistinct) will be built to explore that rock ahead fulfils 35 its target properties, so that will be accessed all the way with the construction and study where there are fractures, should be we really construct this tunnel or not. So it's a gradual process of rock classification and decision making. But could I go back a bit to the earthquake question? 40 MR JACOBI: Yes. MR AIKAS: So this was an important question also during the 90s when the safety assessments were conducted, and especially the safety assessment in 96 when lots of so-called scoping calculations were made for the earthquakes. As 45


someone mentioned (indistinct) is a very calm region in terms of earthquakes and seismicity in general, but we cannot rule out that there could be a possible large earthquake (indistinct) sometimes in the future, and therefore, lots of scoping calculations were made so that a lot could be (indistinct) if it would take place at this site where the repository is located, at that depth where the 5 repository is, and hit maximum number of canisters, and we could see that in spite of the breaking of several canisters by a big kind of guillotine kind of movement, the release still should be and would be very low, because most of the radionuclides, they are not easily soluble in groundwater, and especially if there is more oxygen present. 10 So there are lots of kind of understanding what would happen if such an earthquake and fall would take place, and later on we have been able to make more careful analysis of individual canisters and fractures and the movement. 15 MR JACOBI: Was there within the design, and we haven't discussed it, any ability to optimise the design to take into account its economics, that is, the - I noticed on the slides before there was a requirement that it be economically feasible, but was it possible to optimise the design in terms of controlling the overall costs? 20 DR HAUTAKANGAS: Yes. There has been done optimisation. The main problem with the optimisation is that the fuel itself, it has to cool down for decades. So this is the biggest problem, to do really effective optimisation. We have to just take that as a given, that cooling time. But other ways, of 25 course, the optimisation in a technical point of view has been made. For example, the layout of facilities has been kept as robust as possible in order to keep the design feasible and economical feasibility. MR JACOBI: Is there anything you want to add? 30 MR AIKAS: Yes. If you look at some consumables, so what you can do with them - so optimisation is the size of the volume, how much will be excavated and packed down, and as you saw, the demonstration tunnel at Onkalo is as small as it can be to save in the amount of backfill, for instance, because 35 backfilling is expensive, and excavation is expensive. And also if you look at the consumables - so the buffer, you can optimise the design of buffers so that the production and manufacturing method would be most optimal, and also what you can do, you can try to optimise the canister core by the manufacturing method. 40 People always think that copper is expensive, but copper is only one part of the canister price, and it's about, let's say, one-fourth of the price of the canister. So the manufacturing itself is the most expensive, but if you can streamline manufacturing under nuclear quality, then that's a big optimisation. We have 45


to remember that anything which goes under the safety classification in the nuclear area is unfortunately pretty expensive. MR JACOBI: I'm wondering, and perhaps I'll invite both of you to speak to this, about why think the key lessons are that have been learned from, I guess, 5 the Finnish experience in developing this repository. DR HAUTAKANGAS: Well, I think one of the key lessons would be the way how we have worked. So in principle, the research and development work has been done together with other actors, for example, with SKB, and the 10 information exchange has always been quite broad and transparent. I think this is, in our case, really important, at least for Finnish concept to get information from abroad and from other scientific experts. MR AIKAS: I would add that, first of all, what has been extremely important 15 in dealing with this, that the government decisions have to be stayed (indistinct) have actually stayed the decision from 1983, it's still valid and holds good, which is a very good thing for (indistinct) and the responsible (indistinct) like our countries to give the stability to this scheme to work with so that there are no political surprises on the way. This has been one important 20 thing, to create this policy or strategy on a kind of government level so that you have all keys to work with your technical and scientific issues. What I would also stress from the acceptance point of view, and from the citizen's point of view and communities, the whole country, it has been 25 important that nuclear regulators, STUK, has been involved in the process from the very beginning and has been at the disposal of the citizens as an independent organisation and giving information and being present if somebody wants them. That has also created some confidence to citizens. 30 MR JACOBI: Did it provide that information in the period up until the time of the decision in principal? Was it actively involved in providing information to the community prior to 1999? MR AIKAS: Well, they were not active by the same manner as we were, like, 35 we were kind of having open houses, open offices and so on, but whenever communities wanted they could ask STUK to come and tell them what they think about possible work and the results. I think that this was important in building confidence between all of the parties, not only (indistinct) and people in the community, but also people between the government and the 40 communities. People very often thinks that government doesn’t mind, they just tell us what to do, but in this case it created confidence. COMMISSIONER: In speaking about the communities, what benefit did the local community, Onkalo, receive for having the repository in their area? 45


MR AIKAS: There are no direct (indistinct) it doesn’t belong to our culture. What (indistinct) granted, if you like (indistinct) employment so that there are jobs, some 120 people will work at the facility when it's operational so it creates jobs, and the communities they gain tax revenues in a form of income 5 tax. More so we have another tax which is very important, and that's called real estate tax, and the power plants, especially hydro power plants and nuclear power plants and nuclear facilities, they have a higher taxation percentage as normal buildings so that the community will get as a tax revenue a significant income from the real estate tax. 10 You already know when Onkalo was being constructed and up until then (indistinct) constructed and operating, so these are the economical benefits the community will get. 15 COMMISSIONER: In speaking about operation, you have an operation licence approved now, I see. DR HAUTAKANGAS: Construction licence. 20 COMMISSIONER: Construction licence? MR AIKAS: Construction. COMMISSIONER: I presume you timed your construction to be ready by 25 2020? DR HAUTAKANGAS: Around that time, yes, and it was assumed that operation would start in 23, maybe. 30 COMMISSIONER: Do we assume construction starts reasonably soon? DR HAUTAKANGAS: Yes, we do. It was on 12 November this year the government approved the construction licence to Posiva, which means that Posiva can now freely begin the construction of all the nuclear facilities, so this 35 is launch for this kind of work. COMMISSIONER: Gentlemen, thank you very much for that very detailed information, which is very useful for us as we think about the terms of reference that we've been asked to consider. We will adjourn for the day and 40 recommence at 7 o'clock tomorrow morning. Thank you very much, Timo, for joining us so early in the morning. MR AIKAS: Thank you. Thank you very much. Goodbye. 45


COMMISSIONER: Thank you. MATTER ADJOURNED AT 5.15 PM UNTIL TUESDAY, 24 NOVEMBER 2015 5


sa nuclear fuel cycle royal commission mr kevin … · 2017-03-24 · morning. an alternative is...

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