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2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 8–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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Japan gets new U for enrichment as global power and fuel plans grow
President Trump is in Japan today, with a visit with new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on the agenda. Takaichi, who took office just last week as Japan’s first female prime minister, has already spoken in favor of nuclear energy and of accelerating the restart of Japan’s long-shuttered power reactors, as Reuters and others have reported. Much of the uranium to power those reactors will be enriched at Japan’s lone enrichment facility—part of Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd.’s Rokkasho fuel complex—which accepted its first delivery of fresh uranium hexafluoride (UF₆) in 11 years earlier this month.
Chantal Medri (NWMO), Glen Bird (GBird Environmental Ltd)
Proceedings | 16th International High-Level Radioactive Waste Management Conference (IHLRWM 2017) | Charlotte, NC, April 9-13, 2017 | Pages 113-120
The basis for assessing the potential postclosure radiological impacts of a deep geological repository on non-human biota has been evolving, particularly with the development of new data. The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) has developed an updated model and dataset consistent with current international practice (Ref. 1). This paper describes the application of the updated non-human biota dose model, using as a basis the calculated environmental media concentration outputs from recent NWMO postclosure safety assessments for hypothetical crystalline and sedimentary rock sites (Ref. 2).
Two analysis cases were selected from each of the postclosure safety assessments - a Normal Evolution Scenario and a Disruptive Event Scenario. Results are generated using two methods of modelling the partitioning behavior of radionuclides - Concentration Ratios and Transfer Factors. The results are compared with two sets of criteria - Screening Criteria and Acceptance Criteria.
Conclusions are drawn for both hypothetical sites and these would need to be repeated for any real candidate site. However, the results illustrate the methodology, provide information on the nature and importance of the various pathways, and are consistent with prior conclusions that an appropriately sited deep geologic repository should have no long-term detrimental impact on biota populations around the site.
