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Welcome to the Natural Analogues Working Group website

 

17th NAWG Workshop
(Monday, 8th May to Friday, 12th May, 2023, Zadar, Croatia)

 

After several false starts due to the COVID pandemic, the NAWG-17 workshop will finally be held in the historical city of Zadar, Croatia (https://zadar.travel/) and will be an opportunity to explore recent developments in the use of natural analogues in supporting safety cases for the disposal of radioactive waste. Currently, the aim is to discuss:


Radioactive waste form stability: including vitrified waste stability and spent fuel evolution


Repository near-field studies: including corrosion of copper and steel canisters and the long-term stability of the bentonite buffer.


Repository far-field studies: including self (or regional) analogues of potential repository sites and assessment of potential radionuclide releases to the host rock and biosphere


Stakeholder communication: including examples of approaches used to communicate different aspects of waste disposal to both technical and non-technical audiences


for some 2.5 days, followed by a half-day field trip to local archaeological analogue sites.


These are but a few examples and we are open to any suggestions to broaden the scope of the meeting - please email the NAWG chairman, Russell Alexander (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), with your ideas and comments. Full details of the workshop (including registration form to be submitted by Friday, 14th April, 2023) will be made available here shortly.

 

Zadar old townZadar old town (image courtesy Bedrock Geosciences)

Zadar harbourSetting sun over Zadar harbour (image courtesy Bedrock Geosciences)

NAWG 17 excursion site at MurterNAWG-17 excursion site, Murter (image courtesy Bedrock Geosciences) 

 

The International Bentonite Longevity (IBL) project was launched at the kick-off meeting on 22-23 May, 2019 in Sagae-shi in Japan. The project was introduced at the NAWG-15 workshop in Prague and recent updates presented at the Clay Conference 2022 in Nancy and current progress will be presented at NAWG-17. For future updates follow the website at www.iblproject.com. For further details contact Russell Alexander (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) or Heini Reijonen (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

 

The bentonite beds exposed in the rived bed at Tsukinono site.