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Energies
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Nuclear and Solid Waste Disposal and Management
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Nuclear and Solid Waste Disposal and Management

A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "B: Energy and Environment".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 June 2020) | Viewed by 5105

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Walter Wildi

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Environmental and Aquatic Sciences, Faculty of Sciences, Section of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Geneva, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland
Interests: environmental geology; limnogeology; sediment contamination in lakes and rivers; waste management (in particular nuclear and chemical waste)

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The Guest Editor is inviting submissions to a Special Issue of Energies on the subject area of “Nuclear and Solid Waste Disposal and Management”.

Military nuclear waste has been produced since the end of the Second World War, whereas waste production from civil nuclear reactors started in the 1960s. First tentative solutions for the elimination of such waste included the injection of liquid waste in deep geological reservoirs and ocean dumping. During the 1960s, international research on sea bed disposal was conducted and abandoned after the adoption of the London Convention. During the following years, the concept of geological “final disposal” in the continental crust was widely accepted by the international community. However, 50 years later, we note that not one single safe and sustainable geological long-term disposal facility has been constructed and operated with success. In particular, incidents and accidents such as the water infiltration in the Asse repository in Germany, or the fire in the WIPP facility in New Mexico (USA), are indicators of inappropriate processes and technologies, weak institutions, and other failures. As a result of these experiences, aspects such as long-term waste disposal monitoring and the retrievability of nuclear (but also of toxic chemical) waste from deep geological repositories has become a social and political requirement in many countries.

The goal of this Special Issue of Energies is to develop and promote strategies and specific practices for the elimination of nuclear and toxic solid waste that consider difficulties encountered in the past. Also, new risks that may arise in the future may be evaluated. We would highly appreciate contributions on scientific, technical, ethical, social, institutional, and long-term financial aspects.

Prof. Dr. Walter Wildi
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • tradition-based and innovative nuclear waste management strategies
  • waste specification and specific elimination practices
  • waste disposal monitoring and retrievability
  • scientific, technical, ethical, social, institutional, and long-term financial aspects.

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

31 pages, 16975 KiB  
Article
Post-Closure Safety Calculations for the Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel in a Generic Horizontal Drillhole Repository
by Stefan Finsterle, Richard A. Muller, John Grimsich, John Apps and Rod Baltzer
Energies 2020, 13(10), 2599; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13102599 - 20 May 2020
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2789
Abstract
The post-closure performance of a generic horizontal drillhole repository for the disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) is quantitatively evaluated using a physics-based numerical model that accounts for coupled thermal-hydrological flow and radionuclide transport processes. The model incorporates most subcomponents of the repository [...] Read more.
The post-closure performance of a generic horizontal drillhole repository for the disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) is quantitatively evaluated using a physics-based numerical model that accounts for coupled thermal-hydrological flow and radionuclide transport processes. The model incorporates most subcomponents of the repository system, from individual waste canisters to the geological far field. The main performance metric is the maximum annual dose to an individual drinking potentially contaminated water taken from a well located above the center of the repository. Safety is evaluated for a wide range of conditions and alternative system evolutions, using deterministic simulations, sensitivity analyses, and a sampling-based uncertainty propagation analysis. These analyses show that the estimated maximum annual dose is low (on the order of 10−4 mSv yr−1, which is 1000 times smaller than a typical dose standard), and that the conclusions drawn from this dose estimate remain valid even if considerable changes are made to key assumptions and property values. The depth of the repository and the attributes of its configuration provide the main safety function of isolation from the accessible environment. Long-term confinement of radionuclides in the waste matrix and slow, diffusion-dominated transport leading to long migration times allow for radioactive decay to occur within the repository system. These preliminary calculations suggest that SNF can be safely disposed in an appropriately sited and carefully constructed and sealed horizontal drillhole repository. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nuclear and Solid Waste Disposal and Management)
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Graphical abstract

12 pages, 1532 KiB  
Article
Carbon Dioxide Gasification Kinetics of Char from Rapeseed Oil Press Cake
by Lech Nowicki, Dorota Siuta and Maciej Markowski
Energies 2020, 13(9), 2318; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13092318 - 7 May 2020
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 2063
Abstract
Rapeseed oil press cake (RPC) is an abundantly available and renewable agricultural waste material for the production of fuels or chemicals. In this study, the rates of carbon dioxide gasification of rapeseed oil press cake char were measured by thermogravimetric analysis measurements performed [...] Read more.
Rapeseed oil press cake (RPC) is an abundantly available and renewable agricultural waste material for the production of fuels or chemicals. In this study, the rates of carbon dioxide gasification of rapeseed oil press cake char were measured by thermogravimetric analysis measurements performed at various temperatures (800–900 °C) and CO2 mole fractions (0.10–1.00). The char was obtained by slow pyrolysis, where the dried RPC was decomposed at a temperature range of 1000 °C to obtain char free of impurities that can affect the measurements. The random pore model appeared to be suitable for describing the effect of conversion on the reaction rate. The temperature, CO2, and concentration dependence of the reaction rate were given by the Arrhenius equation and a power law (nth order) correlation. The kinetic parameters based on the experimental data were determined by a two-step estimation procedure. For the experimental conditions employed in this study, the parameters E and n were 222.1 kJ/mol and 0.57, respectively. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nuclear and Solid Waste Disposal and Management)
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