SR-CAN - a safety assessment of a repository of spent nuclear fuel: canister performance and effects on the biosphere

During the next few years the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Co. (SKB) performs site investigations at two sites in Sweden for a future repository of spent nuclear fuel. Parallel an encapsulation plant is planned to encapsulate the spent fuel in copper canisters according to the KBS-3 method. The purpose of the SR-CAN safety assessment is to show the performance of the canister isolations at different sites for a repository at 500 meters depth in crystalline rock. Moreover, SR-CAN provides an example how the site specific safety assessment of a deep repository will be made in year 2006-2008. To be able to calculate dose and risk for humans and the environment, new assessment methods were developed for the biosphere. These methods were based on a system ecological approach and used knowledge from landscape ecology to provide an integrated approach with hydrology and geology considering the discharges in a watershed and calculating consequences in terrestrial and aquatic (freshwater and marine) ecosystems. A range of methods and tools were developed in GIS and Matlab/Simulink to be able to model and understand the important processes in the landscape today and during the next few thousands of years. In this paper, an overview of the program and the novel methods are presented, as well as some examples from performance calculations from a watershed in the Forsmark area considering effects on humans and ecosystems. (author)