The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Management of radioactive waste

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, May 19, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Management of radioactive waste

Staff Reporter

Better radioactive waste management stressed

CHENNAI: A seminar on `Radioactive Waste Management', organised by the Association of Waste Management and Remediation of Environment (AWARE), Kalpakkam, provided an overview of the reprocessing technology in relation to fast breeder reactor, besides underscoring the importance of surveillance of the environment to minimise the impact of radioactive wastes.

Participants also mulled over efforts to improve the technology for cost-effectiveness as well as better radioactive waste management to reduce the burden on the environment.

Speaking on immobilisation of high-level wastes, K. Balu, president of AWARE and former director of Nuclear Recycle Group, BARC, said separating long-life isotopes such as actinides from the high-level waste would reduce the surveillance periods by several orders.

A.R. Balakrishnan, Head, Chemical Engineering Department, IIT, focussed on the need to recycle the waste and save natural resources.

Elaborating on the release of radioactive nuclides in liquid and gaseous forms, V. Kannan, officer-in-charge, Environmental Surveillance Laboratory at Kalpakkam, said the dose received from nuclear facilities at Kalpakkam was negligible compared to that from natural background.

R. Natarajan, Director, Reprocessing Group, IGCAR, spoke on the fast reactor-spent fuel reprocessing technology in comparison with that in France, the UK, Russia and Japan.

The seminar, held at IIT-Madras, was aimed at providing effective linkage between the DAE and the academic institutes such as the IIT, Anna University and research institutes like the CLRI.

B. Saha, Head, Innovative Instrumentation Section, Electronics and Instrumentation Group, IGCAR, chaired the technical session.

D.V.S. Murthy, vice-president, AWARE, welcomed the gathering, and K.B. Lal, executive president of AWARE, proposed a vote of thanks.

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