JNC-DOE collaborative program on Mass Transport. Characterization and Predictive Technologies

This is the sixth year of a continuing collaborative program which started in April, 1993 under an Annex pursuant to the Agreement of November 20, 1986 between the Nuclear Power and Fuel Development Corporation (PNC), Japan and United States Department of Energy (DOE) on Cooperation in the Area of Radioactive Waste Management. The Annex was originally signed on March 26, 1993 to be effective for four years, and was subsequently renewed on September 15, 1997 for three additional years based on the renewed PNC-DOE Binational Agreement. The subject of research covered under this Annex is Mass Transport: Characterization and Predictive Technologies. In 1998, PNC was renamed Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute (JNC). The DOE Office overseeing this annex agreement is the Office of Environmental Management, Office of Science and Technology (EM-50). The work is performed at the Earth Sciences Division of the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory with funding support from JNC. The primary objective of this Collaborative Program is to (a) improve the understanding of the fundamental physics and chemistry that govern the processes which play a significant role in radio-active waste isolation/disposal in geologic systems and (b) develop characterization and predictive technologies of release and transport of radio-nuclides in heterogeneous geologic media. The Collaborative Program focuses on the definition and investigation of the processes of primary importance to the release and transport of radionuclides, and the development and application of theories and models to predict the phenomena accurately. Available laboratory and field experiments within and outside of the Collaborative Program provide the basic phenomenological data to test the validity of the theories and the modeling approach itself. (J.P.N.)