14 DAY TRIAL // Building a nuclear reactor and then purposely causing it to malfunction and experience a meltdown sounds very much like something a scientist whose brain is not working quite right would do, but, as it turns out, this is exactly what will soon happen in Japan.
This past Thursday, the country's Atomic Energy Agency announced that it planned to let a bunch of scientists piece together a nuclear reactor and then engineer some conditions that would result in a serious malfunction.
Local media reports say that, in its press release on the matter at hand, Japan's Atomic Energy Agency details that this experiment will make it easier for scientists to figure out what exactly goes down during a nuclear meltdown.
The information collected in this manner is expected to help them determine the best ways to cope with disasters such at the Fukushima incident in March 2011.
As was to be expected, people did not take lightly to the news that a nuclear meltdown was to soon take place in Japan, Voice of America reports.
Still, the specialists involved in this project stress the fact that the experiment will take place in a controlled environment, and that there is no reason to worry.
The scientists detail that, to begin with, the reactor that they will get to toy with as part of this research project will be a scaled-down version of the ones at the Fukushima site or at other nuclear plants around the world.
What's more, they have no intention to put loads of fuel inside the construction. On the contrary, the reactor will only be made to accommodate for a small amount of the same type of fuel that was used at Fukushima.
“This type of experiment is usually under very carefully controlled conditions,” explained Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist at The Union of Concerned Scientists.
Furthermore, “The amount of material involved is very small and the facility is going to be secured and filtered. So I think there's very little risk associated with this experiment to the public.”
The experiment will take place sometime later this year at a research facility in Ibaraki, north of Tokyo.
Specialists explain that, in order to cause the reactor to suffer a meltdown, they will have to allow the fuel in its core to overheat beyond its melting point. Once this happens, an explosion and a release of radioactive material are expected to take place.
They say that this is exactly what happened at Fukushima back in March 2011, and that their work will help shed more light on the process.