Newswise — The question of what to do with radioactive nuclear waste has dogged the nuclear power industry since its inception. In the United States, Yucca Mountain was meant to serve as a disposal site--until political problems shuttered it earlier this year. Concerns about managing waste that will be dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years have stymied governments all over the world.
Now, an underground repository is being built in Finland to provide a final home for the country's nuclear waste. According to the engineers in charge of the facility, their design will hold the spent nuclear fuel for a minimum of 100,000 years. Assuring the facility's safety thousands of centuries into the future is a monumental task. The world's nuclear industry will be watching to see what answers the Finns may have for the rest of the planet.
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