Underground research facilities and rock laboratories for the development of geological disposal concepts and repository systems

Abstract: Underground research laboratories (URLs) play an important and multi-faceted role in the development of deep geological repository systems for the disposal of radioactive waste, both from a scientific and technological point of view as well as for building public confidence. For more than three decades several countries have been conducting extended experimental and demonstration programmes in such facilities. The results produced from these investigations in URLs have proven to be valuable both in generic terms, i.e. developing and assessing the disposal concept and improving general acceptance, and in specific terms, as an essential means for detailed characterisation, design and assessment of potential repository systems.