Preparing to Construct a Disposal Facility Posiva Approaching the Submission of a Construction License

Abstract

Posiva Oy's (Posiva) last leg of the journey to submit a construction license for a deep repository and an encapsulation plant at the Olkiluoto site in Eurajoki, Finland has started. The forty year´s journey towards operating a disposal facility in 2020 is about to reach the second important legal milestone towards the facility implementation, the submission of the construction license in 2012.

The starting words of Posiva's waste management programme were published in the "Activity plan and timetable for TVO's nuclear waste management" in 1982 by the Nuclear Waste Commission of Finnish Power Companies. The essence of the plan became a Government decision in 1983 stating that the disposal operations of spent fuel could be started in 2020 and a site suitable for the construction of a repository should be selected by the end of 2000. The Government's Decision-in-Principle (DiP) that was ratified by the Parliament in 2001 enabled Posiva to proceed to site confirmation studies. As a major part of these studies it enabled Posiva to construct the underground rock characterisation facility (URCF) ONKALO on the site according to the regulatory requirements despite the fact that ONKALO is not a nuclear facility.

Posiva's programme after about ten years of confirming site studies and learning underground construction according to regulatory requirements is currently aiming at submitting a construction license application for the Olkiluoto deep repository and encapsulation plant in 2012.

According to the Government's decision in 2003 a pre-licensing documentation was submitted to the responsible ministry TEM (Ministry of Employment and the Economy) and the state-of-the-art documentation related to the safety case for the disposal facility was submitted to the overseeing authority STUK (Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority Finland).

Prior the decision in principle application in 1999, Posiva also carried out the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) programme as a pre-requisite of the application. The EIA programme and report were also pioneering actions at the time, since after Finland joined the European Union this programme was the first project for which the new EIA legislation adopted after the EC's EIA directive was applied in Finland. The EIA process was updated in 2008 for the nuclear plant expansion programmes of Posiva's owners TVO and Fortum Power and Heat. Also new Decision-in-Principle applications were submitted for the new nuclear power plant units.

Posiva now proceeds according to its latest research, development and demonstration (RD&D) plan "TKS-2009", taking into consideration the statement by the responsible ministry TEM and the comments received from STUK on the pre-licensing documentation with the 2012 goal in sight.

This paper discusses the licensing process of Posiva's facilities within the Finnish regulatory environment from the implementer's point of view.