Safety of an underground regional burial site for radioactive wastes on the Kola Peninsula

Abstract

The results of investigations of the safety validation of an underground regional burial site in the northern region of our country as part of the TACIS project are presented. The methodological approaches are described, and the initial data on the activity level of ecologically significant radionuclides and models of the burial site (near and far fields, biosphere) are presented. The results of numerical experiments are discussed. These experiments made it possible to draw a preliminary conclusion about the acceptibility of the sites considered for burying wastes and the preferred site Dal'nie Zelentsy, located at the center of the Murmansk geological block.The specific nature of the problem of handling the radioactive wastes in the European northern region of our country (Murmansk and Arkhangelsk oblasts) is due, specifically, to the fact that these wastes are formed during operation, repair work, and decommissioning of the reactor systems of military and civilian nuclear-powered fleets and the Kola nuclear power plant. According to the characteristics taken together (installed capacity, power-generation lifetime, structural implementation, operating regime, specific contribution to waste formation), they differ substantially from the power reactors used in nuclear power plants. Especially acute is the problem of handling wastes from the northern fleet. For a long time, an infrastructure for handling wastes from the fleet was not developed because of the former practice of simply dumping the wastes into the sea. Today, there are actually no means for reprocessing the wastes. The wastes are stored using floating and shore bases. The capacities of these bases are now exhausted and many of them are now in an emergency state and are to be liquidated [1].The conceptual scheme for handling radioactive wastes in the region presupposes that the wastes are conditioned for subsequent disposal in a regional burial site [2]. The question arising now is choosing a site and the type of regional burial site for radioactive wastes. One of the key problems in resolving this questtion is assessing the safety of such a burial site.This article is devoted to assessing the safety of a burial site whose conceptual design was developed by the Mining Institute together with Russian and foreign partners as part of the TACIS program (1997)(1998)(1999).Radionuclide Composition of the Wastes. As part of the project indicated, the characteristics of the conditioned wastes, which are produced when modern reprocessing and conditioning technology is used and are shipped to a regional