S. Korean labs win deal to treat fusion reactor waste

SEOUL, May 18 (Yonhap) -- South Korean laboratories have secured a deal to draw
up plans for optimal radioactive treatment and waste storage for an experimental
fusion reactor being built in France, the government said Monday.
The 274,500 euro (US$368,800) technical consultation contract calls for detailed
studies to be conducted on how best to collect and assort waste and determine the
safest way to move such waste from the reactor to special holding areas, the
Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said.
Korea Power Engineering Co. and Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute won the
deal from the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) authorities
and will be tasked with determining the cost of disposal, including packaging of
contaminated materials, and the best way to treat both solid and liquid waste.
Such materials must be stored for up to 20 years in so-called hot cell buildings.
ITER uses naturally abundant tritium and deuterium to release helium and neutron
particles that effectively allow the creation of an artificial sun on Earth. Such
a system could possible provide a limitless supply of energy.
The process requires the building of superconducting magnets and a huge vacuum
chamber to contain the energy-generating fusion reaction that will take place.
The plasma field created in the vacuum chamber can reach temperatures of 300
million degrees Celsius, significantly higher than the core temperature of the
sun, which reaches temperatures of 15,000 degrees Celsius.
Experts say that while the amount of radioactive waste created is small compared
to conventional nuclear fission reactors, it must be handled with care and
requires special facilities. The half-life of tritium is about 15 years, compared
to thousands of years for uranium used in nuclear reactors.
"By winning the consultation deal in an open bid, the country has effectively won
international recognition for its prowess in this technology area," an official
said.
He added that work on the project will begin in October and will last five
months, creating and opportunity for South Korea to take part in future
ITER-related projects.
South Korea is a member of the ITER consortium -- made up of the European Union
(EU), the United States, Japan, Russia, China and India -- which is working on an
operable fusion power testbed. Scheduled for completion by around 2018,
experiments are to be conducted for about 20 years to check the feasibility of
the technology. Once this process is underway, a demonstration plant that can
actually generate power is to be set up sometime mid-century.
yonngong@yna.co.kr
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