nuclear-news

In “Conditions for criticality by uranium deposition in water-saturated geological formations“, Xudong Liu; Joonhong Ahn of the Dept of Nuclear Engineering, U. Cal. Berkeley; & Fumio Hirano of Japan Atomic Energy Agency, Geological Isolation Research and Development Directorate, Tokai-mura, (2014), raise the question of risk of a criticality event, an uncontrolled nuclear reaction, in a deep geologic repository for nuclear waste. Despite some seemingly faulty assumptions, which appear to understate risk, they rather bravely, considering their affiliations and funding, conclude that there could be a problem. At the end is the statement: “This study was carried out under a contract with METI (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) of Japanese Government in the fiscal year of 2012 as part of its R&D supporting program for developing geological disposal technology.”

Little wonder that Japan was allegedly already trying to get shot of its high level nuclear waste…