It is a nuclear trash can project whose cost is estimated at 35 billion euros, one of the most colossal (and controversial) projects ever launched in France. In a few decades, the most dangerous radioactive waste must be buried in Bure, in the Meuse… for hundreds of thousands of years. Visit 500 meters underground with “Additional investigation”.
At a time when the State has put nuclear power back at the center of its energy policy, how are we going to manage waste from our power plants ? And what to do with so-called “ultimate” waste? some of which will remain radioactive for thousands of years ? Officially, they represent no more than 4% of the spent fuel from our power stations. These residues from the core of our reactors must be stored as far away from populations as possible.
The solution chosen by France is called “deep geological storage”. It is supposed to protect us, as well as future generations, from the extreme danger of this waste. The site chosen for their burial 500 meters underground is located in Bure, in the Meuse. Currently, it does not host any of this final waste, but a research laboratory of the National Agency for the Management of Radioactive Waste, Andra. Its engineers are studying this landfill project, the most advanced in the world alongside that of Finland.
Like at the museum, guided tour… by a communications officer
Every year, more than 10,000 people visit the Cigéo project site (Geological Industrial Storage Center). A “Complementary investigation” team accompanied six engineering and geology students. After six minutes of descent through the earth’s crust, visitors, equipped with a helmet and a suit, emerge into the 2 kilometer gallery dug for the laboratory. The future project will have 250, the equivalent of the Paris metro.
Here we are at the level of the thick layer of clay known to be impermeable which must trap the waste whose radioactivity is the most intense and longest lasting. They will be stored in small tunnels, where any deformations are measured and monitored using extensometers.
As in a museum, the visit is guided… by a communications officer. It is she who provides these explanations. She highlights the “28,000 continuous measurement points which make it possible to collect around 2.5 million data per day”, exploited “for more than twenty years.” What, according to her, to demonstrate “the safety of long-term storage”. Message received: the students seem convinced that “everything is secure” and that it is about “the best solution we have for the moment”. All the final waste from the reactors of our power plants will not be stored here before 2080.
Extract from “Nuclear waste: when our trash cans overflow”, a document to be seen in “Additional investigation” on October 12, 2023.
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