Press Release 12/2012 – Clarification on reports regarding nuclear waste repository in India
Dear Sir/Madam,
During the last few days some sections of media have been reporting that Department of Atomic Energy and its PSU Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd. will be dumping nuclear wastes from Kundakulam Nuclear Power Plant, Tamil Nadu in Kolar Gold Field,Karnataka. It is hereby categorically stated that the Department of Atomic Energy or Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd. do not have any plans to dump nuclear wastefrom any nuclear power plant in the Kolar Gold fields. In fact Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd has submitted a supplementary affidavit today to the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India wherein it has stated very clearly that “it is not considering the Kolar Gold Mine of BGML in Karnataka for purposes of nuclear waste storage as is being alleged or has been suggested by a section of media”.
Department of Atomic Energy has been conducting studies in an underground chamber in Kolar Gold Mine with an objective of understanding the behaviour of rock mass at an elevated temperature and to ultimately develop appropriate models, their validation andto develop suitable instrumentation for the underground mining conditions. These studies are being carried out since 1980s at a depth of 1000 meter in the amphibolite rock formation of Kolar Gold Fields. The studies employ electrical heater to simulate theheat conditions which will be encountered in an actual deep geological repository.
It may be noted that Kolar Gold Mines being vulnerable to water ingress, have never been and will never be a candidate for deep geological repository.
We request the entire media to kindly publish these clarifications in their esteemed journals/news channels for the benefit of their valuable readers/viewers