THE WORLD NUCLEAR WASTE REPORT — 2019
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KEY INSIGHTS WASTE MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS •• No country in the world has a deep geological repository for spent nuclear fuel in operation. Finland is the only country currently constructing a permanent repository. ••
Despite multiple failed selection procedures and abandoned repositories, a preference for geological disposal remains. There is a strong consensus that the current state of research and exchange with civil society is inadequate for the challenges faced.
•• With deep geological repositories not available for decades to come, the risks are increasingly shifting to interim storage facilities which are
running out of capacity: for example, storage capacity for spent fuel in Finland has reached 93 percent saturation.
QUANTITIES OF NUCLEAR WASTE •• Over 60,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel are in storage across Europe (excluding Russia and Slovakia), most of which in France. Spent nuclear fuel is considered high-level waste and makes up the vast bulk of radioactivity. As of 2016,
81 percent of Europe’s spent fuel has been moved into wet storage, which comes with its own safety risks.
•• Around 2.5 million m³ of low- and intermediate-level waste has been generated in Europe. Around 20 percent of this waste (0.5 million m³) has been stored; 80 percent (close to 2 million m³) has been disposed of. •• Decomissioning Europe’s reactors may generate at least another 1.4 million m³ of low- and intermedaite level waste. ••
Over its lifetime, European nuclear reactors may produce around 6.6 million m³ of nuclear waste. If stacked in one place, this would fill up a football field 919 meters high, 90 meters higher than the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Four countries account for over 75 percent of this waste: France (30 percent), the UK (20 percent), Ukraine (18 percent), and Germany (8 percent).
•• Apart from Russia, which is still produces uranium, Germany and France have the largest inventory of nuclear waste from uranium mining in Europe.
