NHK has learned that Japan’s nuclear regulator has decided to request over 2 million dollars to fund research to create regulatory standards for the final disposal of high-level radioactive waste from nuclear plants. The funding would be in its draft budget for the next fiscal year.
Japanese law says highly radioactive waste must ultimately be buried more than 300 meters underground as it continues emitting intense radiation for a very long time.
Surveys to select final disposal sites are underway in Suttsu Town and Kamoenai Village, both in the northern prefecture of Hokkaido, as well as Genkai Town in Saga Prefecture, southwestern Japan.
The Secretariat of the Nuclear Regulation Authority decided to ask for a budget of 320 million yen, or about 2.2 million dollars, for fiscal 2025 for setting up regulatory standards to ensure safety for the final disposal.
It plans to use the funding to conduct research on the long-term safety of canisters used to hold radioactive materials contained in nuclear waste and to evaluate radiation exposure levels resulting from final disposal, among other studies.
This is the first time that research funding of its kind has been included in its budget requests.
The nuclear regulator plans to seek a budget of 70.7 billion yen in total, or about 490 million dollars, for the next fiscal year. That’s up 14.3 billion yen, or 99.2 million dollars, from the initial budget for this fiscal year.
It says the amount for fiscal 2025 includes funding for beefing up systems to swiftly gauge radiation levels around a nuclear plant in the event of a disaster and to operate a monitoring system using aircraft.