The Finnish Centre for Radiation and Nuclear Safety announced that it has been granted a license to operate the world's first spent nuclear fuel storage facility.
The statement published on the center's website reads: "The Radiation and Nuclear Safety Center supports granting an operating license for a spent nuclear fuel disposal facility."
The center explained that the warehouse still needs to obtain an operating license from the Ministry of Labor and Economic Development. For its part, the ministry announced that it is also preparing the license for the facility to operate.
According to the project, spent nuclear fuel will be placed in cast iron containers coated with a layer of copper to protect them from corrosion. These containers will then be lowered into burial shafts at a depth of more than 400 meters.
Poseva, the company responsible for the project, has applied for a license to operate the facility until the end of 2070.
The Onkalo repository was built near the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant, about 240 kilometers from Helsinki. It is the world's first geological storage project for nuclear waste for up to about 100,000 years.
