Here's what Mr. Burns, um, I mean Dr. Whitlock has to offer on the topic of disposal:
In 1988 the CNFWMP, through AECL, submitted its generic (non-site-specific) proposal [11] for long-term nuclear used-fuel management to the federal government, which intiated an Environmental Review process that ultimately took ten years to conclude. Under the proposal, the used fuel would be placed in disposal vaults about 500 to 1000 meters deep in the granite rock of the Canadian Shield. The "formations of choice" are large, single intrusions called batholiths, formed between one and two billion years ago, and geologically stable since that time. Other criteria met by grantitic batholiths are low mineral (and therefore economic) value, and low ground-water movement rates.
Used fuel would be encased in corrosion-resistant containers designed to last thousands of years, and surrounded by a buffer material (such as bentonite clay) that retards water migration. The vaults, tunnels, and shafts of this disposal site would be backfilled and sealed during its closure stage. The safety design of the emplacement technology has been developed with the conservative assumption that the fuel-bearing containers will only last a fraction of their design life. The technology also does not depend on long-term institutional controls, and is adaptable to future societal requirements and changes in criteria.
A specific site has not been sought at this stage, as mandated by the joint decision of the federal and Ontario governments in 1981 to develop only generic technology for initial review. However, key site characteristics (distance from post-glacial faulting, low mineral value, low ground-water movement, size and uniform nature of plutonic rock, etc.) have been defined in preparation for the siting stage of the program.
Depending on the size chosen for the facility, the total project cost is estimated at between CDN$9 and CDN$13 billion, spread over a 60- to 90-year period (during most of which, about 1000 people would be employed in the construction and operation). Electricity users in Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick currently contribute about 1% of their electricity costs towards a fund for future long-term nuclear waste disposal.
In the rest of the article, he explains that for the moment we just stick'em in these big swimming pools for a year or so, then moving them to "air dry" under a few feet of concrete, and that:
The radiation ... creates a simultaneous need for shielding. About three meters of water are sufficient to absorb the radiation emitted initially by the used fuel, while in the dry-storage phase about a meter of concrete suffices. Unshielded, the radiation dose measured at a distance of 30 cm from a used CANDU fuel bundle, one year following discharge, would be about 50 - 60 Sv/h (5000 - 6000 rem/h) [5], which is lethal after a few minutes' exposure. The radiation level drops to about 1 Sv/h after 50 years, 0.3 Sv/h after 100 years, and less than 0.001 Sv/h (100 mrem/h) after 500 years. At this time the major hazard from the used fuel is no longer one of external exposure; for example, by these estimates, spending an hour about a foot away from a 500-year-old CANDU fuel bundle would result in radiation dose about 1/4 of the average annual background exposure, and thousands of times less than what is known to lead to physical harm.
He sounds so ... *perky* about the whole thing. "Standing a foot away from a spent fuel rod five hundred years from now "only" generates TWO THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY (give or take) times the normal amount of radiation in the atmosphere. As far as we know, that might not even make your skin fall off!"
