The multidisciplinary project will address key technical issues that must be tackled to support the implementation of planned geological disposal projects for higher-level radioactive wastes across the EU. Our current understanding of the impact of microbial metabolism on the safety of geological repositories remains tenuous, even though microorganisms may have controlling influences on wasteform evolution in situ, multibarrier integrity and ultimately radionuclide migration from the repository. This proposal targets a number of “high urgency” and “high importance” topics identified in the most recent IGD-TP Strategic Research Agenda, focusing specifically on the influence of microbial processes on waste forms and their behavior, and the technical feasibility and long-term performance of repository components. The project will bring together, for the first time, 15 European groups working on the impact of microbial processes on safety cases for geological repositories across the EU, focusing on key questions posed by waste management organisations. The emphasis will be on quantifying specific measureable impacts of microbial activity on safety cases under repository-relevant conditions, thus altering the current view of microbes in repositories and leading to significant refinements of safety case models currently being implemented to evaluate the long-term evolution of radwaste repositories. The integration of society and policy oriented studies in the project will also extend the impact of the project outside the scientific and technical domain, while a study of expert conceptualization, public perception and risk communication concerning microbial influences in geological disposal, will improve awareness of microbial issues on a broader level. The programme will help the EU claim international leadership in the understanding of the impact of microbial processes on geodisposal, and indeed other technological areas pertinent to the exploitation of the subsurface.

The Modern2020 project aims at providing the means for developing and implementing an effective and efficient repository operational monitoring programme, taking into account the requirements of specific national programmes. The work allows advanced national radioactive waste disposal programmes to design monitoring systems suitable for deployment when repositories start operating in the next decade and supports less developed programmes and other stakeholders by illustrating how the national context can be taken into account in designing dedicated monitoring programmes tailored to their national needs. The work is established to understand what should be monitored within the frame of the wider safety cases and to provide methodology on how monitoring information can be used to support decision making and to plan for responding to monitoring results. Research and development work aims to improve and develop innovative repository monitoring techniques (wireless data transmission, alternative power supply sources, new sensors, geophysical methods) from the proof of feasibility stage to the technology development and demonstration phase. Innovative technical solutions facilitate the integration and flexibility of required monitoring components to ease the final implementation and adaptation of the monitoring system. Full-scale in-situ demonstrations of innovative monitoring techniques will further enhance the knowledge on the operational implementation of specific disposal monitoring and will demonstrate the performance of the state-of-the-art, the innovative techniques and their comparison with conventional ones. Finally, Modern2020 has the ambition to effectively engage local citizen stakeholders in the R&D monitoring activity by involving them at an early stage in a repository development programme in order to integrate their concerns and expectations into monitoring programmes.