LMS-EPFL to join Mont Terri Project
© Mont Terri Project / 2022 EPFL
LMS to bring its expertise to this international project for the deep geological disposal of radioactive waste and geological storage of CO2.
The EPFL Laboratory of Soil Mechanics has been chosen to join the Mont Terri Project, an international research project for the hydrogeological, geochemical, and geotechnical exploration of a shale formation (Opalinus Clay), to determine its suitability for the deep geological disposal of radioactive waste and as tight caprock for the permanent storage of CO2 in deep aquifer formations.
The project is based at the Mont Terri Rock Laboratory, an underground facility near St-Ursanne in Switzerland, where 22 organizations from Belgium, Germany, France, Japan, Canada, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the USA are taking part in the underground research project under the direction of the Swiss Federal Office of Topography (Swisstopo).
The LMS, along with fellow EPFL laboratory the EML (Environmental Microbiology Laboratory) will join existing partners from the Department of Earth Sciences at ETH Zurich, the Department of Water Resources and Drinking Water (EAWAG) and the Nuclear Energy and Safety Research Division at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), under a new umbrella partnership called ETH/EPF.
The Director of the Mont Terri Rock Laboratory, Dr Christophe Nussbaum says the addition of the new partners is a real added value for the Consortium. “The LMS group has been involved in many laboratory experiments and intensive modelling efforts to understand the coupled THM processes in shale at the Mont Terri rock lab over many years and this experience and know-how will be an invaluable contribution in the next phases of the project.”
This collaboration will commence in July 2022.