Further delay in Finnish repository licence review

WNN, 5 December 2025
Finland’s Ministry of Employment and the Economy has granted the country’s nuclear regulator a third extension to the deadline to complete its assessment of Posiva Oy’s operating licence application for the world’s first used nuclear fuel repository. The regulator’s statement is now expected by mid-2026.

Radioactive waste management company Posiva submitted its application, together with related information, to the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment on 30 December 2021 for an operating licence for the used fuel encapsulation plant and final disposal facility currently under construction at Olkiluoto. The repository is expected to begin operations in the mid-2020s. Posiva is applying for an operating licence for a period from March 2024 to the end of 2070.

The government will make the final decision on Posiva’s application, but a positive opinion by the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) is required beforehand. The regulator began its review in May 2022 after concluding Posiva had provided sufficient material. The ministry had requested STUK’s opinion on the application by the end of 2023. However, in January last year, STUK requested the deadline for its opinion be extended until the end of 2024. In December, the ministry extended the deadline for the regulator’s opinion to 31 December 2025.

The ministry has now extended the deadline until the end of June 2026, “if it is possible to do so by then”. According to STUK, the new timetable is possible, but tight, for both the authority and the licence applicant.

Although STUK’s assessment of the application is in the final stages, the statement and safety assessment cannot be completed until it has assessed and approved all of Posiva’s operating licence application materials……………

At the repository, used fuel will be placed in the bedrock, at a depth of about 430 metres. The disposal system consists of a tightly sealed iron-copper canister, a bentonite buffer enclosing the canister, a tunnel backfilling material made of swellable clay, the seal structures of the tunnels and premises, and the enclosing rock

…………… The operation will last for about 100 years before the repository is closed.

….STUK said. “In particular, the demonstration of the performance of the clay material, which acts as one of the barriers to the spread of radioactive substances, is still under way. Posiva replaced the clay material in the original plans with another, and the effects of the new material on the long-term safety of the final disposal still need to be assessed.” https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/further-delay-in-finnish-repository-licence-review#:~:text=Finland’s%20Ministry%20of%20Employment%20and,now%20expected%20by%20mid%2D2026