Akito Arima

Abstract It is my great honor and pleasure to speak to you this morning on the occasion of the International Symposium on Nuclear Back-end Issues and the Role of Nuclear Transmutation Technology after the accident of TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Stations. I would like to thank the organizers, especially Professor Hirotake Moriyama and Professor Hajimu Yamana, for inviting me to this Symposium.

I believe that this Symposium is very important and well timed to solve urgent problems concerning nuclear back-end issues and to develop nuclear transmutation technology. I myself am a nuclear theoretical physicist and am ignorant of nuclear technology. However, I believe that nuclear energy is indispensable for the future of human beings and that nuclear engineering must be further developed.

My talk consists of the following four subjects:

1. Demand for primary energy and electricity is increasing year by year.

2. Global warming is becoming a more serious problem.

3. Development of renewable energy must be promoted. However, it will require sufficient resources of time and budget.

4. Human beings cannot avoid depending on nuclear energy as well as other energy resources that do not emit CO2.

5. Nuclear technology must be developed.

(a) The safety technology of nuclear energy has to be developed for the future.

(b) The technology for the back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle has to be enhanced. The site for final disposal of nuclear wastes has to be determined as soon as possible in Japan, which is a responsibility of the Central Government.

(c) The research and development of innovative technologies, such as accelerator-driven systems, must be promoted to encourage the progress of final disposal.

A. Arima (*)

Japan Radioisotope Association, 2-28-45, Honkomagome, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8941, Japan e-mail: arima@musashi. jp

© The Author(s) 2015

K. Nakajima (ed.), Nuclear Back-end and Transmutation Technology for Waste Disposal, DOI 10.1007/978-4-431-55111-9_23

(d) Research and development of nuclear technologies for reactor decommissioning, safety technology, back-end, etc., must be promoted intensively through interna­tional cooperation.

Keywords Accelerator-driven system • Decommissioning • Final disposal • Nuclear back-end • Nuclear energy • Nuclear transmutation