Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT) (방사성폐기물학회지)

Korean Radioactive Waste Society (한국방사성폐기물학회)
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A Current Status of Natural Analogues Programs in Nations Considering High-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal

  • Received : 2022.08.01
  • Accepted : 2022.10.14
  • Published : 2023.03.31
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Abstract

Several countries have been operating radioactive waste disposal (RWD) programs to construct their own repositories and have used natural analogues (NA) studies directly or indirectly to ensure the reliability of the long-term safety of deep geological disposal (DGD) systems. A DGD system in Korea has been under development, and for this purpose a generic NA study is necessary. The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute has just launched the first national NA R&D program in Korea to identify the role of NA studies and to support the safety case in the RWD program. In this article, we review some cases of NA studies carried out in advanced countries considering crystalline rocks as candidate host rocks for high-level radioactive waste disposal. We examine the differences among these case studies and their roles in reflecting each country's disposal repository design. The legal basis and roadmap for NA studies in each country are also described. However because the results of this analysis depend upon different environmental conditions, they can be only used as important data for establishing various research strategies to strengthen the NA study environment for domestic disposal system research in Korea.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank YeoJin Ju of Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI), South Korea for assistance in investigating the Canadian case. This work was supported by the Institute for Korea Spent Nucler Fuel (iKSNF) and National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (Ministry of Science and ICT, MSIT) (No. 2021M2E1A1085186).

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