This panel session focuses on the progress of deep repository programs, worldwide. While efforts on a deep geological repository for SNF/UNF and HLW in the USA were terminated in 2010, several other repository programs continue to make considerable progress and deserve to be recognized. Panelists will be invited from national, multi-national, and international repository programs and organizations to report upon the current status and future plans as well as the perceived reasons underlying the success and the failure of components of their respective repository program. This panel will provide a forum for interested parties to present, exchange, and take advantage of, as appropriate, repository progress, challenges, concepts/designs and other lessons learned around the world, including site characterization, site selection, research and development, licensing, construction, operation, and public acceptance and participation.

Panelists include: Rogerio Pimenta Mourao, National Nuclear Energy Commission (Brazil); Dr. Geckeis, Director of the Institute for Nuclear Waste Management, Karslruhe Institute of Technology (Germany); and Ann McCall, SKB International AB (Sweden) and Roger Nelson, Chief Scientist, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Carlsbad Field Office (CBFO)