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Undeclared uranium hitches a ride on cobalt exports from Congo, study says
Philippe (left) and Manzuk quantified the amount of uranium that has been exported from the DRC in cobalt shipments or left behind in the environment. (Photo: Joel Hallberg/UW–Madison)
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Princeton University have published a study in Nature Communications that calls attention to a blind spot in nuclear nonproliferation: The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has exported thousands of metric tons of uranium, and there is no accounting for where it has gone.
In partnership with Lighthouse Reports and the Financial Times, UW–Madison nuclear engineering professor and nuclear security expert Sébastien Philippe and Ryan Manzuk, a geologist and research fellow in Philippe’s group and at Princeton, conducted the study using countrywide mineralization and geochemical data.
Won-Jin Cho, Sangki Kwon
Nuclear Technology | Volume 177 | Number 2 | February 2012 | Pages 245-256
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management and Disposal | doi.org/10.13182/NT12-A13369
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The effects of the resaturation process occurring in the buffer on the analysis of temperature distribution in the engineered barrier system of a nuclear waste repository were assessed. The assessment was performed using the TOUGH2 computer code, which analyzes the multidimensional fluid and heat flows of the multiphase, multicomponent fluid mixture in an unsaturated medium. The hydraulic and thermal properties of the buffer, backfill, and near-field rock were measured and were used as input parameters for the analysis. If the resaturation process is considered in the thermal analysis, the disposal density of nuclear waste can be increased up to 30% under the given thermal constraint and site condition. The hydrostatic pressure in the near-field rock will not have an important impact on the resaturation process.