For almost fifty years, storage sites have been used in most countries using nuclear energy to manage their radioactive waste, particularly those with low or medium levels of radiotoxicity. However, this storage remains a major challenge, as these substances can threaten human health for thousands of years. The search for sustainable solutions for their management, such as a new glass ceramic identified in February 2024, therefore remains a crucial issue for the nuclear industry.
On December 12, IFLScience informed us that a new type of installation was preparing to open its doors on the Finnish island of Olkiluoto. The objective of this “nuclear grave” is to lock away radioactive waste for more than 100,000 years.
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This project, known as “Onkalo” and launched in 2016, represents one of the most ambitious solutions for managing nuclear waste in the long term. This burial aims to provide unprecedented security in terms of nuclear waste storage. Located 430 meters below the earth's surface, this “tomb” will be permanently sealed in the 2120s.
Periods of nuclear toxicity difficult for humans to understand
Nuclear waste should not be neglected. Although their volume is relatively small, they represent 99% of the radioactivity generated by the nuclear industry, underlines the scientific information site launched in 2012 and based in the United Kingdom. The Onkalo site, which will be protected by geological layers, aims to prevent any contamination for millennia.
A major scientific and ethical challenge arises because these materials will be harmful for periods far longer than the history of our civilization. In other words, during a period of time that human beings are not able to comprehend.
The Finnish authorities chose to build this facility in Olkiluoto, a particularly geologically stable region. Once the waste is buried in copper and cast iron containers, the site will be sealed. The process is expected to begin in 2025 or 2026, after several phases of security testing. These have already started successfully.
How can we warn future generations of the danger?
A crucial question remains: how can we make future generations understand that they will have to avoid this place at all costs for millennia? How can we warn a society whose language and cultural norms we know neither?
Several ideas were proposed to indelibly mark the site. One of them is to make the landscape deliberately threatening and inhospitable, so that even several millennia from now, a form of “instinctive reflex” of avoidance will be triggered in anyone who goes there. This idea joins recent proposals, such as the creation of monumental structures or the use of coded messages, as suggested by National Geographic in September 2023.
This “nuclear grave”, although technologically advanced, raises a broader reflection on the sustainability of human choices. This unique project could inspire other nations facing the same problem, while raising the question of the viability of nuclear energy itself. Can we continue to produce waste “for life”, while its management remains a major challenge for future generations?
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