Scientific and Technical Priorities in Geological Repositories: Science and Space Technologies

The disposal of waste, including nuclear waste (from the nuclear power industry and other nuclear applications) and carbon dioxide (to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and associated greenhouse warming) constitutes one of the major environmental technical challenges of the 21st Century and has great importance on the national and international level.

This workshop will consider the scientific and technical priorities in the establishment, maintenance and monitoring of geological repositories with a special focus on the transfer of technologies from the space sector and STFC into addressing challenges in geological repositories.

In the US alone, there is 40,000 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel and 400,000 cubic metres of high level nuclear waste to be disposed. In the UK, plans for the geological disposal of nuclear waste well advanced, but there still many challenges to be addressed relating to the geophysical, geochemical and biological processes that might occur in UK repository sites.

Talks to include:

• Stuart Haszeldine - Carbon Capture and Storage
• Samantha Clark - Major priorities in CO2 storage
• Sam Telfer - Muon tomography
• Jon Lloyd - Microbial priorities/uncertainties in geodisposal
• Yoshiko Fujita - Carbonate mineral precipitation: a potential mechanism for mitigating contaminant release from repositories
• Naji Bassil - Microbial degradation of Isosaccharinic acid (ISA) under high pH conditions representative of an intermediate level radioactive waste repository)
• Sarah Vines - NDA (Nuclear Decommissioning Authority)
• Ian Hutchinson - Planetary Science and space technology
• Nick Smith - Use of new and innovative technologies for the remote characterisation and modelling of natural and man-made materials associated with geological disposal.

GeoRepNet (http://www.georepnet.org/) is a network funded by STFC Futures to examine the scientific and technical priorities in the establishment and monitoring of Geological Repositories.

Registration

You can register for this meeting at: https://www.astrobiology.ac.uk/events/georepnetmeeting/

There is no registration fee.

Further information