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An overview of gas research in support of the UK geological disposal programme

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2018

S. J. Williams
S. J. Williams*
Affiliation:
Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, Radioactive Waste Management Directorate, NDA Harwell Office, Building 587, Curie Avenue, Harwell, Didcot, Oxfordshire OX11 0RH, UK
*
*E-mail: steve.williams@nda.gov.uk
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Abstract

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Gases will be generated in waste packages during their transport to a geological disposal facility (GDF), this generation will continue during GDF operations and after GDF closure. The range of gases produced will include flammable, radioactive and chemotoxic species. These must be managed to ensure safety during transport and operations, and the post-closure consequences need to be understood. The two primary post-closure gas issues for a GDF are the need for the system pressure to remain below a value at which irreversible damage to the engineered barrier system and host geology could occur, and the need to ensure that any flux of gas (in particular gaseous radionuclides) to the biosphere does not result in unacceptable risk. This paper provides an overview of the research of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, Radioactive Waste Management Directorate into gas generation and its migration from a GDF.

Keywords

gas generationgas migrationgeological disposal facility
Type
Research Article
Information
Mineralogical Magazine , Volume 76 , Issue 8 , December 2012 , pp. 3271 - 3278
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
© [2012] The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland 2012

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