Grand opening of the test facility for the demonstration of final disposal of spent fuel in boreholes

At September, the 9th, 2008, DBE TECHNOLOGY GmbH set up his test facility in the former turbine hall of the E.ON power plant Robert Frank in Landesbergen (Nienburg municipality, Lower Saxony; N-Germany) with 100 guests from industry, research and politics as well as a representative of the European Commission. Up to June 2009, demonstration tests will be performed here to prove the technical feasibility of the final disposal of canisters with spent fuel in boreholes.

Since the eighties, demonstration tests in combination with system analytical work have been accomplished in Germany to prove the technical feasibility of final disposal of radioactive waste in salt. The reference concept for final disposal provides drift emplacement of spent fuel in POLLUX-casks and borehole emplacement of vitrified waste in canisters. In the nineties, the technical feasibility of drift emplacement in POLLUX-casks has been successfully shown by demonstration tests. Initially, the waste management options of reprocessing and direct disposal of spent fuel have been accepted as equivalent, but at August, the 21st, 2002, waste management has been restricted to direct disposal by amendment of the German Atomic Law. At March, the 31st, 2005 the Reactor Safety Commission (RSK) evaluated the current status of disposal research. One result was the confirmation that for the final disposal in salt, the lifetime of the canister is of minor importance. Additionally, RSK recommended to proceed in further development of the existing concept and to optimize with regard to safety aspects.

An important step for this goal is the new R&D project DENKMAL that has been funded by the Federal Ministry for Economy and Technology, the European Commission and by the German power industry. The objective of this project is to optimize the direct disposal of spent fuel by the emplacement of canisters in boreholes.

Basic advantages of borehole emplacement in comparison to drift emplacement are:

• Improvement of heat transfer from the heat producing canister to the rock salt by means of close contact,
• due to the heating, faster creeping of the salt and therefore a quick enclosure of the canister by the rock,
• reduction of potential gas generation by corrosion during the post-operational period due to the smaller size of the canisters compared to the POLLUX-casks,
• reduction of required footprint of the repository by using the host rock in three dimensions, and
• economical benefit by saving container and operating costs.

DBE TECHNOLOGY GmbH has been contracted to perform the DENKMAL project. The adequate repository equipment has been developed and manufactured in
cooperation with GNS GmbH.

The test program includes the proving of the emplacement procedure for two different canister types (BSK3 (for spent fuel) as well as triple-pack-canisters (for waste from reprocessing)) by approx. 1000 emplacement cycles. Furthermore, the correction of operational disturbances will be tested.
The results from these tests will enable a substantiated evaluation of safety and reliability of the emplacement system and its components. Therefore, they will also generate a basis for an evaluation of the repository concept and for the future decision.

Here, you will find additional photos from the opening