Consent-based siting proved key for Canada in selecting repository site

PHOENIX —— Canada is one of the first but won’t be the last nation to successfully use “consent-based siting” to select a deep underground repository location for used nuclear fuel, the CEO of Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization, said here Monday.

A “decade of engagement” was key to Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) being able to select a site in Northwestern Ontario in November for the repository, the agency’s CEO Laurie Swami told the Waste Management Symposia.

It was a process that could not be rushed, Swami said.  It focused on “consent, community and collaboration.” As a result, “Northwestern Ontario will see hundreds of new jobs and billions of dollars of investment,” Swami said. Along the way, planners had to overcome “misinformation” that is not reliable or fact-based.

If all goes according to plan, the site repository will start accepting used spent fuel in the 2040s, Swami said.

Alluding to the Donald Trump administration’s public statements on tariffs on Canada, “I think our nations are better when we are on the same team,” Swami said. “We would like to continue to work together.”

Canada is also looking for a site to host a deep underground repository for intermediate used nuclear fuel, Swami said.