The Swedish government has authorised the final disposal of spent nuclear fuel at Forsmark in Östhammar Municipality. The facility is developed by SKB (Svensk Kärnbränslehantering Aktiebolag, the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company), owned by Swedish nuclear companies. SKB intends to bury the waste in the bedrock near Forsmark, using iron casings surrounded by copper tubes that are slid into crystalline rock in a tunnel 500 meters underground. The site should receive its first test shipments in 2023 and be operational by 2025. The facility will be sealed after about 70 years with bentonite clay to keep water out. The project still needs to secure approval from the Swedish environmental court.
In addition, the country has permitted construction of the encapsulation plant that is needed to handle the spent nuclear fuel in Oskarshamn. The mid-term storage facility in Oskarshamn currently stores more than 7,500 t of spent nuclear fuel. The three Swedish nuclear plants have produced 8,000 t of radioactive waste since they started operating in the 1970s.