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February 5, 2021, 11:34 AM ET
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Deep within the bedrock in western Finland, flashing lights from heavy machinery cast shadows in eerie tunnels that lead to a tomb that must remain unperturbed for millennia.
There is a reason the catacomb on the lush island of Olkiluoto was buried 400 meters (1,312 feet) below ground: It will house the world's first spent nuclear fuel disposal facility.
The project, which aims to solve the age-old quagmire of what to do with nuclear waste, is nearing completion in a region that is already home to Europe's largest nuclear reactor.
The Onkalo repository is designed to house a total of 6,500 tonnes of uranium, covering the spent fuel produced by Finland's five nuclear reactors during their lifetime.
Low-carbon nuclear power has been hailed as a climate-friendly energy source as the world struggles to combat global warming.
Environmentalists, however, worry about their safety and warn that disposing radioactive waste carries huge risks.
Around 400,000 tonnes of used fuel have been discharged from reactors worldwide so far, the World Nuclear Association estimates, most of which is stored in temporary storage facilities near power plants.
But the long-term storage problem has cast a shadow on nuclear projects.
Onkalo's operator Posiva has developed its solution together with the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company (SKB).
The plan is to encapsulate the used uranium in thick copper shells and bury the up to five-meter-long canisters in the bedrock, before sealing the tunnel with a massive, wedge-shaped and steel-reinforced concrete plug.
Construction began at Onkalo -- Finnish for "hollow" -- in 2004, and final trials will be conducted in early 2024.
"Once we have established that we are ready, we can then move on to the actual operational phase in the mid-2020s," geologist Johanna Hansen, Onkalo's research and development coordinator, told AFP.
- Final resting place -
The immense amount of time it takes for radiation to decrease to safe levels poses significant challenges.
It can take around 250,000 years for the high-level toxic waste to reach the radiation levels of a naturally occurring uranium deposit.
Put in context, 250,000 years ago Europe was in the midst of an Ice Age and was home to Neanderthals and mammoths, while Homo sapiens had only recently emerged in Africa.
In other words, before the waste no longer poses a threat to the environment or people, the landscape of Olkiluoto island may have changed dramatically.
Posiva insists their canisters are designed to withstand even major changes taking place on Earth.
But some experts have cast doubt on the Finnish-Swedish disposal method.
"It is not a solution, it's a reduction of risk," Jan Haverkamp, nuclear energy expert at Greenpeace, told AFP.
Haverkamp claimed that Posiva is giving "no real attention" to the discourse around corrosion of the copper canister in Sweden.
For example, researchers at the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) have questioned the plan's safety by highlighting greater risks of copper corrosion than previously acknowledged, which could result in leakage.
"The case for not producing more waste is still standing as strong as it was standing 20 years ago," he added.
Posiva and SKB have refuted KTH's experimental studies, and the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority has concluded that the plans meet the requirements of nuclear and radiation safety.
- 'Leading the way' -
Allison Macfarlane, professor at the University of British Columbia, told AFP that while no plan is "100 percent safe," Onkalo is "certainly the solution that's received the most research."
The alternative, she added, would be "leaving the waste where it is above ground without a plan indefinitely."
If the nuclear waste is left above ground and our society falls apart "it will definitely get into the environment and affect humans," she explained.
She believes that in a reasonably selected location, the waste "will remain safe for thousands and tens of thousands of years."
"I think it is the internationally agreed-upon solution to the problem of nuclear waste," Macfarlane said.
Locations for potential nuclear waste repositories have been selected in Sweden, France and Switzerland, with Canada close to making a decision.
"Now that we are leading the way, others are following and doing the same," Posiva's Hansen said.
But many projects have faced resistance and locations have been difficult to agree on, such as France's Cigeo project in the country's northeast.
In April, Finland's next-generation Olkiluoto 3 nuclear reactor, the largest in Europe, went into regular production.
A poll published the same month by the trade association Finnish Energy showed record-high support for nuclear energy in Finland, with 68 percent of Finns in favor.
Macfarlane said "Sweden and Finland have shown us that the technical challenges can be surmounted."
"Other challenges that need to be addressed are the political ones."
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An Iranian draft law that would set new penalties for women not wearing a headscarf in public has sparked heated debate within the Islamic republic's leadership as more women flout the country's strict dress code.
Since the aftermath of the Islamic revolution of 1979, women have been required to cover their hair and neck in public places, with offenders facing fines or prison terms of up to two months.
But a growing number are defying the law and appearing bareheaded in the streets.
The trend accelerated during the nationwide protests sparked by the September death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman arrested for allegedly violating the law.
The protests rocked Iran, provoking a crackdown by authorities that claimed the lives of hundreds of people, including dozens of security personnel, and saw thousands more arrested.
Iran's conservatives, who dominate the country's parliament and leadership, have passionately defended the dress code and believe relaxing rules would begin a process leading to profound shifts in "social norms".
But with many Iranians demanding change, in May the judiciary and the government proposed a "Support for the Culture of Hijab and Chastity" bill, to "protect society" and "strengthen family life".
The text proposes increased fines for "any person removing their veil in public places or on the internet" but withdraws the threat of a prison sentence.
"This bill reduces the removal of the hijab from a felony to a misdemeanor, similar to a traffic violation but with heavier fines," sociologist Abbas Abdi told AFP.
After Amini's death and the subsequent protests, society "no longer accepts that we imprison a woman because she does not wear the veil", he said.
Since the protests, authorities have imposed a series of measures to enforce Iran's strict dress code, including the closure of businesses whose staff do not conform with the rules and installing cameras in public places to track down offenders.
In recent days, at least three officials have been sacked or arrested for failing to prevent unveiled women from entering historic sites.
- 'Not dissuasive enough' -
Under the proposed law, the text of which has been published in government-affiliated media, offenders will first receive a warning text message from the police.
A second breach will incur fines of between five million and 60 million rials (around $10 to $120), a large sum for many Iranians. The law would also provide for other penalties, including the confiscation of a woman's vehicle for up to 10 days.
Defending the bill, judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei stressed the need to avoid polarizing society, saying he understood the "concerns of believers" supportive of the dress code.
As the bill awaits examination by lawmakers, it faces accusations of not being tough enough from ultra-conservatives, an influential bloc in the current parliament.
Relaxing punishments for violations will see "the expansion of a repugnant phenomenon" by "removing legal barriers" for women not wearing a veil, the ultra-conservative newspaper Kayhan said.
Those supporting the law "do not know that the enemy" seeks to "destroy the family as an institution and ultimately, to attack the foundations of the Islamic system" by removing headscarves, the newspaper said.
Social networks and foreign media, particularly television channels broadcasting in Persian, are calling for "social disobedience", according to some ultra-conservatives.
Within Iran's leadership "there is no consensus on the hijab", as some favor repression, while others "believe that other means must be tried", the sociologist Abdi said.
"The bill satisfies neither the supporters of compulsory hijab nor, of course, the supporters of the freedom to cover up or not."
A similar situation developed in the 1990s with a law prohibiting the use of satellite dishes, he said.
"It was only implemented for a while before it was dropped."
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US aviation officials on Monday were investigating the fatal crash of an "unresponsive" private plane that strayed over the nation's capital and prompted the scrambling of F-16 fighter jets.
The Cessna Citation slammed into mountainous terrain Sunday afternoon in Virginia, some 170 miles (275 kilometers) southwest of Washington, killing all four people aboard, officials said.
The crash came shortly after the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) dispatched F-16s to intercept an "unresponsive" Cessna 560 Citation V aircraft over Washington, whose airspace is tightly restricted.
According to The Washington Post, the pilot of one of the F-16s could see the pilot of the Cessna slumped over in the cockpit -- suggesting a loss of consciousness due to depressurization of the aircraft.
NORAD said flares were deployed to try to draw the attention of the pilot but there was no response and the private plane eventually crashed near the George Washington National Forest in Virginia.
"NORAD attempted to establish contact with the pilot until the aircraft crashed," it said in a statement.
The F-16s triggered a sonic boom across Washington and its suburbs, startling residents and rattling windows for miles.
"The NORAD aircraft were authorized to travel at supersonic speeds and a sonic boom may have been heard by residents of the region," NORAD said.
Aviation experts speculated that the pilot of the Cessna may have become incapacitated due to a depressurization of the aircraft, which can cause a rapid loss of consciousness at altitudes above 10,000 feet (3,000 meters).
A loss of cabin pressure was blamed for a high-profile 1999 Learjet accident that killed golfer Payne Stewart and four other people.
In that case, the Learjet, which was on a flight from Florida to Texas, flew for thousands of miles on autopilot before eventually running out of fuel and crashing in South Dakota.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and National Transportation Safety Board said they were investigating Sunday's accident.
Virginia State Police said first responders reached the crash site near the town of Staunton by foot some four hours after the Cessna plummeted to the ground.
"No survivors were located," police said in a statement.
The Cessna had taken off from Elizabethton, Tennessee, bound for Long Island MacArthur Airport in New York, the FAA said.
But it turned around after flying over Long Island and headed back south over Washington and into Virginia, climbing as high as 34,000 feet according to flight tracking website Flightradar24.
The Post said contact with the plane was lost about 15 minutes after its departure from Elizabethton and the aircraft may have continued to fly for hours on autopilot before exhausting its fuel and crashing.
- 'My family is gone' -
President Joe Biden, who was at the White House and also played golf Sunday, was briefed on the incident, an official said without specifying whether any emergency precautions were implemented.
US authorities have yet to officially identify those on board, but comments by two relatives of people believed to have been on the plane provided some information.
Public records showed the aircraft was registered to Florida-based company Encore Motors of Melbourne, whose owner John Rumpel told the Post his daughter, a grandchild and her nanny were on board.
In response to condolence messages on her Facebook page, Rumpel's wife, Barbara, wrote on the platform Sunday night: "My family is gone, my daughter and granddaughter."
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