Name: Thabana repository
Other Names: Formerly known as Radiation Hill
Address:
Location: Pelindaba
Website:
Phone Number:
Subordinate to: AEC
Size:
Primary function: The facility stores spent fuel from the AEC's research activities, SAFARI-1, other radioactive waste including 2000 liters per annum of short-lived isotopes from various hospitals, together with other low-level wastes from non-nuclear industrial resources.
Description: The facility consists of eight trenches (3-8 m deep) with approximately 17 tons of uranium, steel tubular storage facility for short-lived sources, medium-active waste storage chamber for the disposal of activation products up to 30 years of half-life, CaF2 storage facility for the disposal of CaF2 sludge, and a hut for hazardous chemicals.
[Key Sources: Phil Richardson, "South Africa Nuclear Power Programme and Relevant Institutions," The Virtual Repository, <http://cobweb.quantisci.co.uk/VRepository/safr.htm>].
Name: Vaalputs National Waste Repository
Other Names: Vaalputs National Radioactive Waste Disposal Facility
Address:
Private Bag X7
Springbok 8240
South Africa
Location: The facility is situated on the Bushmanland Plateau, in north-western Cape Province, approximately 100 km southeast of Springbok and 600 Km north of Cape Town.
Website:
Phone Number: 27-251-22832
Subordinate to: Atomic Energy Corporation of South Africa Ltd. (AEC), now called South African Nuclear Energy Corporation Ltd. (NECSA), on behalf of ESCOM
Size: The facility, with a capacity of 1,470 m³/a of low level waste (LLW)/intermediate level waste (ILW) disposal, covers an area of 10,000 ha including a disposal area of 35 ha, in an area 700 x 500 m at approximately 1000 ft above sea level. There are two pre-constructed trenches (one for ILW concrete containers and the other for drummed LLW) 100 m long x 20 m wide x 7.5 m deep.
Primary function: The facility disposes low and intermediate level nuclear waste from the Koeberg reactors, including clothing and other laboratory equipment, and places them in steel drums and concrete containers, of which 1500 drums and 500 concrete containers are produced annually.
Description: The facility began its operation in 1986 and was fully licensed by 1990. As of December 1995, there were 2,345 concrete containers and 4,609 other packages, consisting of mainly steel drums. Nuclear waste delivery from Koeberg ceased in September 1996 when officials discovered several cracked concrete canisters and as many as 22 leaking steel drums. After the inspection in September 1997, the Council for Nuclear Safety lifted the delivery ban to Vaalputs. In 1999, 24 more concrete containers and 1,200 drums were disposed.
[Key Sources: Phil Richardson, "South Africa Nuclear Power Programme and Relevant Institutions," The Virtual Repository, <http://cobweb.quantisci.co.uk/VRepository/safr.htm>; "South Africa—Fact Sheet," International Waste Management, http://etd.pnl.gov:2080/fac/southafrica/factsheet.html].
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Updated February 2006 |
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