Scientists to create controlled nuclear meltdown in Ibaraki facility [View all]

[Katashi_itto]

TOKYO —
A team of nuclear scientists in Japan plan to create a controlled reactor meltdown in a bid to learn how to deal with future disasters like that at Fukushima.

The Japan Atomic Energy Agency said it was working on a project using a scaled-down version of a reactor which they would deliberately cause to malfunction at a research facility in Ibaraki, north of Tokyo.

“We want to study exactly how meltdowns happen and apply what we will learn to help improve ways to deal with severe accidents in the future,” said a spokesman for the government-backed engineering agency.

The meltdown project, which will begin some time in the fiscal year that starts in April, will use a small fuel rod that that will undergo a very rapid fission process, the spokesman said.
http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/japanese-scientists-to-create-controlled-nuclear-meltdown