Microbial studies in the Canadian nuclear fuel waste management program.

Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) has developed a concept for permanent geological disposal of used nuclear fuel in Canada. This concept, based on a multibarrier system, would involve disposal of nuclear fuel waste in titanium or copper containers, surrounded by compacted clay-based buffer and backfill materials, in a vault 500-1000 m deep in granitic rock of the Canadian Shield. Subsurface environments will not be sterile and an experimental program was initiated in 1991 by AECL to address and quantify the potential effects of microbial action on the integrity of the disposal vault. This microbial program focuses on answering specific questions in areas such as the survival of bacteria in compacted clay-based buffer materials under relevant radiation, temperature and desiccation conditions; mobility of microbes in compacted buffer materials; the potential for microbially influenced corrosion of containers; microbial gas production in backfill material; introduction of nutrients as a result of vault excavation and operation; the presence and activity of microbes in deep granitic groundwaters; and the effects of biofilms on radionuclide migration in the geosphere. This paper summarizes the results to date from the research activities at AECL.

[1]  A. D. Brown.  Microbial Water Stress Physiology: Principles and Perspectives , 1990 .

[2]  P. Hooker,et al.  Uranium-mineralized micro-organisms associated with uraniferous hydrocarbons in southwest Scotland , 1990, Nature.

[3]  T. Beveridge.  The bacterial surface: general considerations towards design and function. , 1988, Canadian journal of microbiology.

[4]  J. R. Kramer.  Old Sediment Carbon in Global Budgets , 1994 .

[5]  C. Brierley,et al.  Microbial Mineral Recovery , 1990 .

[6]  J. Graham,et al.  ON THE RELATIONS OF SUCTION, MOISTURE CONTENT, AND SOIL STRUCTURE IN COMPACTED CLAYS , 1995 .

[7]  B. Lollar,et al.  Microbial communities in deep Canadian shield groundwaters—an in situ biofilm experiment , 1995 .

[8]  D. L. Haldeman,et al.  Comparison of Identification Systems for Classification of Bacteria Isolated from Water and Endolithic Habitats within the Deep Subsurface , 1992, Applied and environmental microbiology.

[9]  J. West,et al.  An overview of microbial research related to high-level nuclear waste disposal with emphasis on the Canadian concept for the disposal of nuclear fuel waste , 1996 .

[10]  D. White,et al.  Biochemical Analysis of Biomass, Community Structure, Nutritional Status, and Metabolic Activity of Microbial Communities in Soil , 1992 .

[11]  S. Stroes-Gascoyne,et al.  Radiation Resistance of the Natural Microbial Population in Buffer Materials , 1994 .

[12]  J. Skjemstad,et al.  The chemistry and nature of protected carbon in soil , 1996 .

[13]  R. Fani,et al.  Transformation of Bacillus subtilis by DNA bound on clay in non-sterile soil. , 1994 .

[14]  J. Fredrickson,et al.  Aerobic metabolic potential of microbial populations indigenous to deep subsurface environments , 1989 .

[15]  Ann Brown.  Methane production in Canadian muskeg bogs , 1989 .

[16]  F. King,et al.  Predicting the Effects of Microbial Activity on the Corrosion of Copper Nuclear Waste Disposal Containers , 1997 .

[17]  K. Marshall,et al.  Bacterial growth on proteins in the presence of clay minerals , 1981 .

[18]  T. Beveridge,et al.  Bacteria as nucleation sites for authigenic minerals in a metal-contaminated lake sediment , 1987 .

[19]  D. Lovley,et al.  Model for the distribution of sulfate reduction and methanogenesis in freshwater sediments , 1986 .

[20]  J. R. Kramer,et al.  Computer simulations of terrestrial carbon and atmospheric interactions. , 1994, Environmental pollution.

[21]  Francis H. Chapelle,et al.  Ground-water microbiology and geochemistry , 1993 .

[22]  J.-W. Choi,et al.  Diffusive transport through compacted Na-and Ca-bentonite , 1996 .

[23]  M. Providenti,et al.  Characterization of microbial communities in deep groundwater from granitic rock , 1997 .

[24]  T. Onstott,et al.  Microbes deep inside the earth. , 1996 .

[25]  K. Pedersen,et al.  Survival of sulfate reducing bacteria at different water activities in compacted bentonite , 1996 .

[26]  W. Ghiorse.  Biology of iron- and manganese-depositing bacteria. , 1984, Annual review of microbiology.

[27]  T. Beveridge,et al.  Surface layers of bacteria. , 1991, Microbiological reviews.

[28]  T. Phelps,et al.  Microbial activities in deep subsurface environments , 1989 .

[29]  T. Beveridge,et al.  Metal Ions and Bacteria , 1989 .

[30]  V. Mattimore,et al.  Radioresistance of Deinococcus radiodurans: functions necessary to survive ionizing radiation are also necessary to survive prolonged desiccation , 1996, Journal of bacteriology.

[31]  Derek R. Lovley,et al.  Enzymic uranium precipitation , 1992 .