The company in charge of managing Sweden's nuclear waste on Wednesday named a site north of Stockholm as the planned repository for spent fuel from the country's atomic power plants.
The Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company said it selected the site near the Forsmark nuclear plant, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) from Stockholm, after two decades of research.
"The Forsmark site offers rock at the repository level which is dry and has few fractures. These properties are of a major significance for long-term safety," the company said in a statement.
If approved by Swedish authorities, the site would become the final repository for radioactive waste that is currently stored in an interim facility.
The new storage facility would be excavated to a depth of about 1,600 feet (500 meters), the company said.
Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren said only Swedish nuclear waste would be stored at the site. "I don't think there will be any requests because the other countries know our stance," he told Swedish news agency TT.
The Swedish government decided earlier this year to scrap a three-decade ban on building new nuclear reactors, citing a lack of alternative sources of energy. The country's 10 operational nuclear reactors generate about half of Sweden's electricity production.
