Radioactive waste

In the article Radioactive waste. Operational management [BN 3 661v2] , we looked at the manufacture of primary waste packages and the storage of short-lived FMAVC waste. These operations do not pose any technical problems or societal issues, as they take place within conceivable timeframes. The same cannot be said for the management of long-lived HAVL and MAVL waste packages or spent fuel assemblies. The time periods to be considered before waste radioactivity diminishes to a natural level (hundreds of thousands of years or more) rule out entrusting its management to society. Altering the radioactivity would only change things qualitatively. To manage waste containing radionuclides with very long half-lives, we need to rely on the stability and containment properties of geological environments. The conditions must therefore be created to ensure that storage packages entrusted to rock remain isolated from the biosphere for as long as possible, and that the radiological impact of confined radionuclides remains, in all circumstances and at all times in the future, lower than that of a fraction of natural radioactivity. Deep geological disposal of radioactive waste should meet this objective.