There is a ticking waste risk in Finland – Radioactive gases are leaking from old packaging in Olkiluoto

There is a ticking risk of radioactive small waste in Finland. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health (STM) is asking the government for more money to tackle the problem.

It’s about the fact that there are radioactive waste packages in Olkiluoto’s interim storage, most of which have significantly exceeded their planned useful life. Radioactive waste has come from, for example, hospitals, industry, and national defense and security applications.

“Radioactive gases (radon and tritium) have been leaking from the packages into the cave for a long time, which, if it gets worse, could even lead to endangering the production of electricity,” the explanatory memorandum of STM’s framework proposal states.

We received an explanatory memorandum with a request for information. The memo states that the spread of radioactive material from the state’s interim storage facility to the premises of Teollisuuden voi TVO has been avoided for the time being. TVO runs the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant.

“At worst, the waste would expose the facility’s employees to radiation, and the cleaning operations would interrupt the facility’s operation. Such an event would therefore also hinder the use of the entire nuclear facility,” the memo says.

According to the memo, several cubic meters of new radioactive waste would be generated from the cleaning operations, and both the cleaning and the downtime of the waste treatment plant would cause considerable costs.

“According to the agreement between the State of Finland and TVO, the State is fully responsible for this waste, so all costs would unequivocally be paid by the State,” the memo states.

Additional funding request

STM is asking the government for money for the safe disposal and interim storage of small waste next year, 1.4 million euros for 2027, and 1.7 million euros for both 2028 and 2029.

In addition, STM proposes that the Radiation Safety Agency (STUK) receive additional money for radioactive waste processing of 480,000 euros next year, 340,000 euros for 2028 and 240,000 euros for 2029.

The Ministry of Finance has not taken these additional funding requests into account in its response to STM’s framework proposal.

“The matter is important, but the key point of departure is that STM should primarily finance this from its existing allocation framework,” says the budget manager of the Ministry of Finance Mika Niemelä.

Niemelä points out that STM has proposed additional funding for both its own and STUK’s operating expenses.

“The amount transferred from these two paragraphs alone, i.e. the amount of euros transferred from last year to the current year, was a total of no less than 25 million euros,” Niemelä states.

The government is in a rush

CFO of STM Mikko Staff states that during the framework preparation STM will presumably have to find funding for many things elsewhere.

“What those things are will become clear after the framework decision, when we know what has been decided and what the resources are,” says Staff.

Staff says that they consider it important for the framework process that all funding needs are on the table, some of which are approved and some of which are not.

“In the process, we also bring up new issues, such as this small waste matter.”

“Some of those that do not receive additional money will not be done. Some will be implemented with current resources,” says Staff.

Petteri Orpon (kok) the board will decide on 21.–22. in his April debate about the frameworks of the state economy, i.e. spending ceilings for the following years.

Among other things, the government has to quickly find savings targets for around 400 million euros, because not all the savings previously agreed upon by the government have been realized.

“Not for a month”

Manager Tommi Toivonen The Radiation Safety Center says that the relocation of the small waste in Olkiluoto’s interim storage is an acute problem, although “not for a month”.

Small waste that ended up in the state has been stored in the “VLJ cave” in Olkiluoto since 1996, but now the lack of space has become a problem. In addition, waste that should not have been taken there according to the agreement between the Finnish government and TVO has also ended up in the interim storage.

A total of 15 cubic meters of radioactive waste should therefore be sent elsewhere.

STM and STUK have explored options for how the radioactive waste could be moved elsewhere in Olkiluoto and repackaged at the same time so that their further processing can be done in a way that does not jeopardize radiation safety.

According to STM and STUK, only Fortum Power & Heat Oy showed interest in the task of moving the radioactive waste batch to a safe place.

The leak happened in 2016

Toivonen mentions that in 2016, radioactive material leaked into the workplace of a company handling radioactive small waste. The company operated in the same building as STUK. The source of the radiation was a decommissioned industrial measuring device.

“Those kinds of (radiation) sources are specifically there,” says Toivonen, referring to the Olkiluoto interim storage facility.

The spill in 2009 did not cause health harm to those involved in the event or to the environment, because the amount leaked was small. However, the contamination of the company’s and STUK’s premises with radioactive material caused expensive and long-lasting clean-up operations.

According to STM’s memorandum, “Finland has not actually disposed of any small waste yet, but almost all imported and decommissioned radiation sources have ended up being the responsibility of the state”. In practice, small waste is in the state’s temporary storage or in the silos of the VLJ cave, waiting for final disposal.