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Language: en

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- There's an urban legend
that when grave-robbers

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found their way to
ancient Egyptian tombs,

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there were warnings they ignored.

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"Do not open this tomb.

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"Do not steal the riches inside.

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"You will be cursed and you will die."

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It's not true. Not just
the curses aren't real,

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but those warnings were
just an urban legend.

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The robbers wouldn't have
been able to read them.

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And even if they could,
the messages weren't warning of curses.

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They were just the ancient equivalent
of a 'no trespassing' sign.

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This is Olkiluoto, an island
on the far west of Finland.

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And here, they're building a tomb
for something that really is dangerous.

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In a few years, the deep bedrock here

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will contain the world's
first long-term storage site

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for high-level nuclear waste,

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right next to some of the
reactors that produce it.

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This isn't a video about whether
nuclear power is good or bad.

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I think it's good, and so,
it seems, does Finland.

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The third reactor here is being tested now
and it's due to go online next year.

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But this video is about
a different question.

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We do have nuclear power in the world,

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so where do we put the waste?

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I didn't know how it would
feel until I stood here.

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It is very strange to have 400 metres
of rock above my head

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and knowing that inside that
solid plug of clay there

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there is high-level radioactive waste.

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This new tunnel complex is called Onkalo,
which translates as 'cavity'.

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And long-term storage
really does mean long-term:

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100,000 years.

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To put that in perspective,

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100,000 years ago, humans
hadn't made it to Europe yet;

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the continent was still frozen
in the middle of an ice age.

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Our species were just hunter-gatherers.

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This facility is being designed
to last for geological time.

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And yes, despite the fact

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that there are hundreds of
nuclear reactors in the world,

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right now there is no permanent
geologic storage facility anywhere

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for high-level radioactive waste,
the spent nuclear fuel, the really nasty stuff

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that could cause disasters if it leaks.

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Now, the problem isn't urgent.

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The world doesn't actually produce
that much of it, relatively speaking.

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A century's worth of high-level waste
from all the current reactors in Finland

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will fit in the final version
of this one new facility.

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But right now, around the world,
high-level radioactive waste

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is generally stored near reactors,

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first in water ponds that
require active cooling,

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and then in concrete casks that'll last,

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well, about as long as a
concrete building would;

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not long enough.

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The US has been trying to work
out a storage site for years,

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but their one serious
attempt, Yucca Mountain,

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has been mired in politics for decades.

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Finland, here, is closest
to building that solution.

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- The geology in Finland is very old.

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We are talking about
two thousand million years

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is the age of what we
have below our feet here.

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And in that way, it's really stable

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and it represents the most
ancient parts of this Earth.

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High-level waste will be disposed of
with cast-iron copper canisters,

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and the canisters are put into the hole
in the deposition tunnels

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and then these are
surrounded by bentonite clay.

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Clay has a low hydraulic conductivity,

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which means that the water
doesn't transport through the clay.

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The spent fuel, when it's taken from
the reactors into the disposal,

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it's highly radioactive.

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But with time, the
radioactivity will decrease.

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After 500 years, people can
stand beside the canister

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and it's not dangerous.

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But there are some other
long-lived radionuclides

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which might be harmful

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in case they were to
come up to the surface

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and into the drinking water,
into the wells or biosphere,

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and therefore the geological disposal

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will isolate the waste
for 100,000 years.

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- This area isn't prone to earthquakes
or other natural disasters.

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Geologically, it's about
as peaceful as you can get.

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So, the plan is: dig the tunnels

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and then, for 100 years,
put the casks of waste in,

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and then backfill each tunnel with clay
so they're encased in solid rock.

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And once the site is full,
fill in every bit of it,

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every last tunnel, and
then leave it forever.

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There are multiple levels of containment.

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The idea is that even if
one or two of them fail,

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everything will still be
safe for 100,000 years,

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unless someone digs it up.

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When the US government was thinking about
using Yucca Mountain as its storage site,

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they commissioned a now-famous report
on how to mark a site like this.

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How do you warn people away,

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even if our civilization has collapsed,

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our language has fallen apart,

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and no one knows what radiation is?

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There were all sorts of ideas,
from a spike field to 'forbidding blocks'.

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But all those would ultimately
be a big sign saying,

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"Hey, there's something
interesting under here; dig!"

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- The facilities will be
closed in about 100 years,

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6,500 tonnes of uranium.

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We have not decided what is
the best way to mark that.

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- There was one other idea
in that research paper:

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Don't mark the site at all.

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One the repository is full,

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fill it in, seal it shut, and then hide it

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so there's nothing
remarkable at the surface.

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There are very few reasons
to dig this deep, particularly here.

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The odds are slim that
some future archaeologist

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would deside to dig 400 metres
down in this remote location.

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And if they did, if someone
ignored all the warnings

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or arrived after everything
had been eroded away up top,

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well, if they did break
through all the containment

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in search of treasure,

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what they'd get is radiation poisoning
and a particularly unpleasant death.

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If the grave-robbers that
dug up Egyptian tombs

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had started rapidly and obviously
dying from a real curse,

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maybe they would've taken the hint.

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Thank you so much to all
the team at Olkiluoto

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who showed me and all the camera teams
who are down here today around.

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You can find out more about them
in the links in the video description.

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All right, thank you. Your turn!