IT COULD lead to a nuclear disaster in the
area. High-level radioactive waste from
the spent fuel reprocessing plant of the
Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC)
at Trombay has been piling up since
1965, and the BARC has not been concerned about it so far. The storage
tanks at Trombay contain 15 to 20 lakh
litres of liquid waste. The high-level
waste released by BARC'S plutonium separation unit at Tarapore near Mumbai, is embedded in Molten glass, which is
encased in steel containers and submerged under water.
More than 90 per cent of the total
radioactivity in the waste material produced by nuclear reactors constitutes
high-level waste. It releases large
amounts of heat during decay and this
raises the temperature of the steel containers to 180-200'c. According to the
former director of BARC, A N Prasad, the
high-level waste collecting at Trombay
was "not that radioactive" to be solidified in molten glass and disposed of in
the sea.
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