OLKILUOTO, Finland—In billion-year-old bedrock, 100 stories below ground, the Finns have found what the whole world is looking for: A place to bury their most dangerous nuclear waste. From the U.S. to the U.K., Germany and Japan, plans to dig tombs for the highly radioactive fuel rods have hit political roadblocks or faced backlash from locals...
Nuclear power companies in Finland appear to have found a solution to the problem of storing nuclear waste. The firms are constructing a tunnel system on a Baltic Sea island off the country’s coast to house 6,500 tons of uranium. The system should be complete by 100,000 years and will be suitable for use for 2020. Other countries, including Germany, Japan, the UK and the US have faced political and community opposition when attempting to build similar tombs for nuclear waste. Finland has countered this problem by providing financial incentives to persuade local people that the scheme offers them benefits.