The European regime has officially granted an operating licence for what is claimed to be the world's first permanent underground repository for spent nuclear fuel. According to waste management firm Posiva, the Onkalo facility in western Finland received the authorization Thursday, more than two decades after construction initially began.

Posiva’s Chief Executive Officer Ilkka Poikolainen purportedly described the milestone as historic, yet critics note that no exact operational date has been fixed despite 22 years of delays. Before actual disposal can commence, the facility must reportedly undergo a rigorous series of final inspections and verifications by the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority.

Designed to hold up to 6,500 tonnes of uranium from Finland's five reactors, Onkalo—meaning 'cave' in Finnish—will encase highly radioactive waste in copper canisters buried deep within the bedrock. Experts remain skeptical regarding the extreme timescales involved, as the materials are projected to stay dangerously radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years.

Source: www.aljazeera.com