Workshop 14
Radioactive Waste Management Monday, June 8th|
Convenors
- Christian Strand (Shearwater)
- Dr. Carlo Dietl (Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management (BASE))
- Dr. Christian Derer (Federal Company for Radioactive Waste Disposal (BGE))
- David Eastwell (Nuclear Waste Services (NWS))
- Ján Klištinec (Radioactive Waste Repository Authority, Czechia)
Description
Radioactive waste management presents both scientific and societal challenges. Owing to its radiological and chemotoxic hazards and its longevity, nuclear waste requires exceptionally careful handling and long-term planning. Geoscience and engineering are central to designing safe deep geological repositories and, particularly on the engineering side, to ensuring effective interim storage and the decommissioning of nuclear facilities.
Around the world, countries are pursuing their own strategies for the safe storage and disposal of nuclear waste. While several international initiatives aim to coordinate research and share knowledge, a dedicated platform within broader professional associations such as EAGE has so far been lacking.
We are therefore pleased to announce the creation of the Technical Community on Radioactive Waste Storage and Disposal. With our inaugural workshop, “Radioactive Waste Management,” we aim to mark this milestone by bringing together geoscientists and engineers working across all aspects of radioactive waste treatment. Participants are invited to showcase activities at international, national, and institutional levels and to strengthen collaboration within this newly founded community.
Sub-Topics that will be covered in the workshop:
- Site selection and deep geological disposal of radioactive waste
- Monitoring technologies for underground repositories and storage sites
- Safety assessment, modeling, and performance evaluation of disposal systems
- Geochemical, hydrogeological, and geomechanical characterization of host rocks
- Material science of engineered barriers, including corrosion, cement chemistry, and bentonite behavior
- Digitalization, data management, and simulation tools (e.g., machine learning, digital twins)
- Regulatory frameworks, licensing processes, and international standards
- Alternative disposal methods
- Storage, conditioning and transport of radioactive waste
- Natural analogues and long-term barrier evolution
- Risk communication, public engagement, and societal acceptance
- Nuclear waste management related to alternative reactor designs and nuclear fusion
Participant Profile
Participants are welcome from all geoscience and engineering disciplines involved in nuclear waste storage and disposal, as well as in the decommissioning of nuclear facilities. The workshop will be particularly relevant for structural geologists, geochemists, mineralogists, and civil, electrical, mechanical engineers, numerical modelers and those involved with safety assessments.
We invite MSc students, PhD candidates, postdocs, and senior scientists from universities, research institutions, regulatory authorities, and industry working on any aspect of radioactive-waste management.
Workshop Programme
Coming Soon!
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 08:45 | Get Ready! - Committee |
| Session 1 | |
| 09:00 | Welcome |
| 09:10 | Keynote - Operator's and value perspective– Are Osen (Aker BP) |
| 09:35 | Keynote - Are we exploiting the full potential of OBN data? – Hossein Mehdi Zadeh (Equinor) |
| 10:00 | Panel session with keynotes and Q&A |
| 10:15 | Coffee Break |
| . | Session 2 PS recording and imaging (status and open questions) |
| 10:30 | Drop & Pop tri-component ArchiNode -Didier Lecerf (PGS) |
| 10:50 | About imaging and inversion of S waves – Adriana Citlali Ramirez - (TGS) |
| 11:10 | Trials, tribulations and silver lining of converted-wave data - regional experiences with PS processing – Marcela Ortin (SLB) |
| 11:30 | Panel session with keynotes and Q&A |
| 11:50 | Lunch |
| Session 2: Elastic FWI (unresolved challenges) | |
| 13:00 | Generative Adversarial Networks for elastic full waveform inversion: Sleipner case - Bhargav Boddupalli (SINTEF) |
| 13:20 | Why FWI should be elastic and more – René Édouard Plessix (Shell) |
| 13:40 | Converted wave elastic FWI using multi-component OBN data – Andrew Ratcliffe (Viridien) |
| 14:00 | Panel session with speakers and Q&A |
| 14:20 | Coffee Break |
| 14:30 | Panel Session |
| . | Short intro statement per panelist |
| . | Discussion - Erling Vågnes (Equinor), Wadii El Karkouri (TGS), Helene Veire (Aker BP) and Alexandre Bertrand (Vår Energi) |
