Give Words of Encouragement from the Central Government, Saying 'Your Community Is a Promising Candidate.' Geological Disposal Site Will Host Academic Institutions and Revitalize Local Community

摘要

Nuclear power plants use uranium as fuels. The amount of fuel required to generate electricity is far less than that of fossil fuel required to generate the equivalent amount of electricity. However, spent nuclear fuels become hazardous radioactive waste after nuclear fission reactions. The nuclear waste is then processed at a reprocessing plant: newly produced plutonium and unburnt fissile uranium are chemically separated from the waste, and the rest is vitrified, that is, mixed with glass and solidified. The vitrified waste is then disposed in a disposal site (repository) more than 300 m underground to isolate it from human beings for an extremely long time. The program has been undertaken by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan (NUMO). Dr. Shunsuke Kondo, professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo, who had been the chairman of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC) for a long time, has been appointed president of the NUMO since July 2014.