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Welcome to the Natural Analogues Working Group website

 

First announcement of the 17th NAWG Workshop
Tuesday, 30th November to Thursday, 2nd December, 2021
Biel/Bienne, Switzerland

POSTPONED

Picture2View of Biel/Bienne old town

 

The NAWG-17 workshop will be an opportunity to explore recent developments in the use of natural analogues (NA) in supporting safety cases (SC) for the disposal of radioactive wastes. Argumentation by use of analogy is well established in many fields including philosophy, biology, linguistics and law and most scientists are familiar with this approach and will have used it at some point in their career. If you are keen to learn more, why not come along? Currently, the aim is to discuss:


Strategic planning of natural analogue support for the safety case: with examples from several national programmes

Near-field studies: including corrosion of copper and steel canisters and the long-term stability of the bentonite buffer, with examples from various forms of disturbance.

Far-field studies: including Regional Analogues of potential repository sites and a review of recent information on the real impact of matrix diffusion on radionuclide releases

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

for the 3 day workshop, followed by a 1 day field trip (details to be announced)

 

The above themes are but a few examples and we are open to any suggestions to broaden the scope of the meeting - please drop the NAWG chairman, Russell Alexander (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), a line with your ideas and comments. Full details of the agenda will be made available on the NAWG web site (www.natural-analogues.com) shortly.

To register for the NAWG-17 workshop, please contact Russell before Friday, 8th October, 2021 using the registration form which can be downloaded from the NAWG web site.

 

Picture3View over Lake Biel/Bienne

 

 

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 the Clay Conference in Davos in 2017 (see the presentation (2.21 MB) ) and recent 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.