Finland’s brilliant plan for dealing with nuclear waste: pulling a Keyser Söze

[n2doc]

After decades of planning and $12 billions of investment, the United States grand plan to dispose of the nation's nuclear waste in Nevada's remote Yucca Mountain melted down in political rancor like... well, kind of like a nuclear plant melting down. The Obama Administration pulled the plug on funding the project without specifying any technical problems, leaving the Government Accountability Office to conclude it was done for purely political reasons.

A great article in Popular Mechanics suggests that our problems with nuclear waste aren't just political but philosophical. Where the American plan is grandiose, overblown, and overbuilt, the Finnish one—the Onkalo facility currently being built on Olkiluoto Island—is clever, simple, and realistic.

To keep away future humans who may or may not speak English, the plan [for a US disposal site] calls for a 2-mile-long berm, 98 feet wide and 33 feet tall, ringing the facility. Huge magnets and radar deflectors would be buried in the berm, intended to make its man-made nature and seriousness of purpose obvious to any future investigator. Forty-eight stone pillars, carved with warnings in seven languages, would be erected Stonehenge-style around the site...The plan, of course, assumes that humanity's capacity for logic and instinct for self-preservation outweigh its natural curiosity-on evidence, a dubious assumption. Seriously, who wouldn't want to dig in a place so baroquely decorated, deathly warnings be damned?

Meanwhile, the Finnish disposal site (again, actually being constructed) is the exact opposite:

Olkiluoto is at best unremarkable, and at worst unpleasant. And that's why Finland thinks it's the perfect place to store nuclear waste. There may be no need to create elaborate ways to prevent unsuspecting people of the future from breaking into the waste repository, because nobody would ever want to visit this island in the first place.

In 2120 or so, Onkalo will be sealed, and if some engineers have their way, that will be it. No signs saying keep out, no skull-and-crossbones icons, no locks on the door. No door at all. Why draw unnecessary attention?

http://io9.com/5909853/finlands-brilliant-plan-for-dealing-with-nuclear-waste-pulling-a-kaiser-soze

[alfredo]

1. As long as the site is able to withstand the forces of nature for

Thousands of years, Then it is a good plan.

[friendly_iconoclast]

2. No shit! Do they not grasp the concept of glaciation?

[alfredo]

3. Long term thinking is something humans are not good at, especially the

men who haven't progressed intellectually and emotionally from their adolescence.

[Nihil]

4. That's the smart way to do it.

The underlying article in the OP is actually in Popular Mechanics ...
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/waste/finlands-crazy-plan-to-make-nuclear-waste-disappear-8732655

... and corrects something that I found confusing in the OP extracts ...

It is the US (New Mexico) replacement for the Yucca Mountain farce that
involves all the techno-ornate attention-grabbers ...

... 2-mile-long berm, 98 feet wide and 33 feet tall, ringing the facility.
Huge magnets and radar deflectors would be buried in the berm, ...
Forty-eight stone pillars, carved with warnings in seven languages,...
Three separate underground chambers ... would house detailed plans of the tunnels.
And thousands of noncorroding Frisbee-size discs, incised with images of human horror,
will be buried all around for any inquisitive diggers to find.

... whilst it is the Finnish one that is simply protected & hidden ...

The bedrock of Olkiluoto Island is boring, with no valuable metal ores
or other enticements to encourage digging.
The groundwater is unpleasantly salty, so it's not a good place to put in a well.
The soil is bad for farming.
Olkiluoto is at best unremarkable, and at worst unpleasant.
...
the transport tunnels and vertical shafts will be backfilled with concrete
and native rock, locking the scary stuff under a quarter-mile of granite.

Yet again, the US have gone for a bells & whistles grandiose plan that
completely overlooks the basic failure that they are making it attractive
to people - everyone loves puzzles & challenges!

Finland went for the "deep underground bunkers carved from impermeable
rock, in geologically stable zones" option.

Which, to you, is the more intelligent long-term solution for a real problem
that already exists (even if no more HLW was produced as of tomorrow)?