One of the challenges facing the continued availability of nuclear energy is that of ensuring the safe, environmentally acceptable and economic management of the waste generated during its production. There is a broad scientific and technical consensus that disposal of high-level, long-lived...

The concept of removing long-lived radioactive wastes from the human environment by disposal in deep geological repositories was developed several decades ago. In the intervening years, research efforts world-wide have increased our knowledge and understanding of how underground disposal systems...

A key challenge in the development of safety cases for the deep geological disposal of radioactive waste is handling the long time frame over which the radioactive waste remains hazardous. The intrinsic hazard of the waste decreases with time, but some hazard remains for extremely long periods....