News item from NEI summarizing siting process for nuclear waste repositories in Sweden, Finland and France.

Over the past forty years, the development of the technology needed to isolate radioactive waste in underground rock systems has been found to be a formidable problem. This is especially the case in connection with high-level waste (HLW) after its removal from operations in nuclear power plants. There is also the additional problem of isolating low- and intermediate-level waste (LILW).

A summary of nuclear waste management in Finland, including energy use statistics, principles of nuclear waste management, financing, how waste is disposed of, the underground research laboratory, and the authorities involved in nuclear waste management.

Long-term radioactive waste management (RWM) involves large and long-term research and development programmes in essentially all countries with civil nuclear programmes. Such programmes develop through different phases from basic research to more focussed applied research and development (R&D) and finally to the design and siting of proposed solutions. Internationally basic principles for the conduct of these programmes, basic safety principles and guidance on how to comply with them have largely been agreed upon.