Ivars Neretnieks – 60 years in KTH’s service
After more than 60 years at KTH, Ivars Neretnieks, professor emeritus in chemical engineering, has submitted his very last grading protocol for his last doctoral student.
“When I realized that this was my last official assignment at KTH, then it felt like some form of closure.”
Ivars Neretnieks started studying at KTH’s technical program in 1958 and since the mid-1970s he has been a professor and guided some 30 doctoral students.
“Two years ago, when it was 60 years since I started, I walked around and looked at the youngsters who wandered around here during the initiation. Then I thought: God lord, was I that young when I started here,” says Ivars.
He retired in 2005, but that did not slow him down noticeably as he continued to come in to work pretty much every day until last spring when he started to take it a bit easier.
“I still have a small room here. I get to meet colleagues and continue my research in the field which amuses me.”
Almost ended up in Lund
The subject that fascinated Ivars during the years is nuclear waste technology. Ivars Neretnieks became involved in the field early, helping with the design of the final repository for radioactive waste from Sweden's nuclear reactors. But that was more or less a coincidence. Ivars started his career in chemical engineering and he could actually have ended up in Lund and not at KTH.
“I never took a doctoral degree, but this was at a breaking point when they were about to introduce the new system. The old doctorate took 7-8 years for people to complete. I had just got my degree of Licentiate, it had taken four years, and I had written and published a lot of articles. So I continued working for a couple of years, wrote a number of other articles and then I applied to become a docent based on those publications.”
That was in 1972. Two years later, Ivars received a professor position at Lund University, a position he never took up. In 1974-75 he was at a research institute in Germany and at that time his old boss, head of chemistry Anders Rasmusson, became President of KTH whereupon the department needed someone who could help out and Ivars was loaned from Lund.
“The years went by and Anders Rasmusson was re-elected and continued on as President for a few years until he died at a relatively young age. Then the professorship became vacant here. So I have never set foot in Lund during all these years,” says Ivars and laughs.
Involvement in the final repository
But how did a professor of chemical engineering get involved in the final repository of Sweden's nuclear waste? It all started in early spring 1977.
It started out like this. A man called and said "are you a professor of chemical engineering?”. He explained that he had suddenly been put in charge of the waste. It was the new law that overnight stated that instead of the government being responsible for the waste, the industry would now take charge, making him the manager. And he didn't know anything about the final repository, so he searched in Sweden and also abroad, for people who could help him with that,” Ivars explains.
The idea was that the spent nuclear fuel would be put far down in the bedrock and that the small amounts of water that ran there would take with them the radioactive substances that could possibly be released. In this context, Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Co (SKB) figured that a professor in chemical engineering could be useful.
“I took a few weeks to think about this and what could happen and realized that of course it was chemistry, it was dissolution, there were reactions and it was transport phenomena above all. And that was something that I did a lot with in my own research, transport in porous beds,” says Ivars and continues:
“In the end, I told him that I could take a little peek and do some simple experiments to look at that idea of theirs. That's how it started. He said: "you can't put some students on it, we can pay for a few doctoral student who can do that" and so it has developed over the years, they have paid for a 15-17 doctoral students.”
Ivars Neretnieks has been researching the final repository throughout his career. Although he retired in 2005, he continues to keep track of the literature, he has written articles and is part of an international research group on the subject.
"You can continue as long as it's fun," says Ivars.