China to build lab for radioactive waste disposal

Work will soon begin on a potential site for a lab to accommodate China's radioactive waste.

Experiments are to be conducted to determine if it is the right choice of site, according to the country's top nuclear safety watchdog.

China uses concentrated disposal to deal with high-level radioactive waste.

The disposal site should be located at least 400 meters underground and boast stable geological conditions that can keep this waste isolated from the humans for more than 10,000 years, said Liu Hua, head of the National Nuclear Safety Administration, on Wednesday.

"We have found a very good site," he told a news conference organized by the State Council Information Office.

He said the lab will be built in accordance with requirements for deep geologic repositories, but construction will depend on data collected from experiments at the site.

Jiang Guang, deputy head of the administration, said the construction of the lab in Gansu province will be launched as soon as possible and that experiments on the site will help identify disposal approaches that will be applied at other suitable sites.

As of June, there are 47 nuclear power facilities in operation on the Chinese mainland and the country is also building 11 new facilities, according to a comprehensive white paper on nuclear safety published by the State Council Information Office on Tuesday.