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Biosphere studies supporting the disposal system safety case in the UK

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2018

R. C. Walke ,
M. C. Thorne  and
S. Norris
R. C. Walke*
Affiliation:
Quintessa Limited, The Hub, 14 Station Road, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire RG9 1AY, UK
M. C. Thorne
Affiliation:
Mike Thorne and Associates Limited, Quarry Cottage, Hamsterley, County Durham DL13 3NJ, UK
S. Norris
Affiliation:
NDA RWMD, Building 587, Curie Avenue, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Didcot, Oxfordshire OX11 0RH, UK
*
*E-mail: russellwalke@quintessa.org
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Abstract

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Higher activity radioactive wastes remain hazardous for extremely long timescales, of up to hundreds of thousands of years. Disposing of such wastes deep underground presents the internationally accepted best solution for isolating them from the surface environment on associated timescales. Geological disposal programmes need to assess potential releases from such facilities on long timescales to inform siting and design decisions and to help build confidence that they will provide an adequate degree of safety. Assessments of geological disposal include consideration of the wastes, the engineered facility, the host geology and the surface and near-surface environment including the biosphere. This paper presents an overview of recent post-closure biosphere assessment studies undertaken in support of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority Radioactive Waste Management Directorate disposal system safety case for geological disposal of the United Kingdom's higher activity radioactive wastes. Recent biosphere studies have included: (1) ensuring that the United Kingdom's approach to consideration of the biosphere in safety case studies continues to be fit for purpose, irrespective of which site or sites are considered in the United Kingdom's geological disposal programme; (2) updating projections of global climate and sea level, together with consideration of the potential importance of transitions between climate states; (3) considering geosphere–biosphere interface issues and their representation, including redox modelling and catchment-scale hydrological modelling; and (4) identifying key radionuclides and developing a series of reports describing their behaviour in the biosphere together with an evaluation of associated implications for post-closure assessment calculations.

Keywords

wastebiosphereassessment
Type
Research Article
Information
Mineralogical Magazine , Volume 76 , Issue 8 , December 2012 , pp. 3225 - 3232
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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