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.

The 1976 Parliamentary election in Sweden resulted in a coalition government which imposed extremely stringent requirements for the waste produced by Swedish nuclear power plants. The industry responded with a crash study, the Nuclear Fuel Safety (KBS) project, with experts drawn from hundreds of universities and related scientific institutions. A year later, the industry presented “a complete scheme for absolutely safe storage of nuclear waste” in engineered facilities located at about 500 m depth in the Swedish granite bedrock (KBS-I).