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

 Registration deadline Friday, 17th March 2023

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 the registration form) can be found here.

Zadar old town (image courtesy Bedrock Geosciences)

Setting sun over Zadar harbour (image courtesy Bedrock Geosciences)

NAWG-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.

NAWG-16 was held in Yamagata, Japan (Zao Onsen) on 15-18 October, 2019. Three days of discussion were followed by a one-day field trip to two NA sites of focus in the IBL project (please see www.iblproject.com for details). 

The workshop proceedings will be made available as a Technical Report later this year, to be made available online here.

Tony Milodowski and his co-authors have described the salinity and redox evolution in a deep coastal groundwater system. The results indicate long-term stability in a deep hydrochemical system despite repeated glaciations and associated sea level changes throughout the Quaternary.

The document can be found in our document library, or downloaded directly pdf here (3.86 MB) . pdf
(3.86 MB)

The results of a new approach to examine long-term physical changes in bentonite properties has just been published as part of the Geosciences journal Special Issue on Geological Disposal of High Level Radioactive Waste - The Relationship between Engineered and Natural Barriers.

The document can be found in our document library, or downloaded directly here : pdf Alexander et al 2017 LPB long term behaviour of bentonite Geosciences (5.87 MB)

Posiva, Finland, have recently released a new assessment of the potential impact of alkali, cementitious leachates from their L/ILW repository on their SF repository. The new study, Posiva Working Report 2017-03 (which can be downloaded here), builds on information from several NA studies, including work in Jordan (Maqarin) and Northern Ireland (Scawt Hill). See also Posiva Working Report 2007-35 (here) and SKB Report 12-17 (here).

Nuclear Waste Management Organizations in Finland (Posiva), Sweden (SKB) and Canada (NWMO) Partner on First-of-its-Kind Research on Greenland Ice Sheet was completed : View the Posiva Press Release

Posiva have published POSIVA Report 2016-17 The Greenland Analogue Project: Final Report which can be downloaded as a PDF through the following link.

Posiva Report 2016-17

In 2015, Springer Journals asked the Editors-in-Chiefs of their journals to pick one article they published in 2015 that addressed the world's most pressing challenges ....