CHARACTERISTICS OF CARBONATE ROCKS AND DISPOSAL OF SOLID LOW/INTERMEDIATE-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTES IN ARID AREAS

摘要

Carbonate areas have usually been ruled out in the past when siting solid low/intermediate-level radioactive waste disposal repositories. However, carbonate rocks in arid regions probably enjoy appropriate properties for L/ILW disposal. It is practically meaningful to study the feasibility of solid L/ILW disposal in carbonate rocks there. Except socio-economic criteria and regional crust stability criteria, the other geological criteria of repository siting dependent on climate and rock types, if only site investigation is well done, are usually met in an arid carbonate area. That means that the characteristics of site geological structure and rock attributes, hydrological and hydrogeological conditions, and engineering geological conditions are proper more often than not. So, we can choose some kinds of carbonate rocks as candidate host rocks of L/ILW disposal in arid regions. The relative practices in a few countries have evidently support the feasibility to some extent, and we intend to conduct profoundly.