Tokyo, September 26: Japan will develop nuclear forensic technologies in the fiscal year beginning April 2011 to identify the origin of nuclear materials in an effort to prevent their trafficking and proliferation.
Amid growing international concern over nuclear terrorism, the Japanese government is aiming to analyze the composition of uranium fuel and reprocessed plutonium in the country to develop technologies for determining where the uranium originated and when it was produced, and to create a database of the results, government sources said Saturday.
The science and technology ministry hopes to secure a budget of 200 million yen for fiscal 2011 starting April to start working on the plan, according to the sources.
Japan, which possesses a large stockpile of plutonium, is also looking to reinforce cooperation with the United States government, which has placed emphasis on counter-terrorism measures, as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA) toward the goal of nuclear nonproliferation.
–PTI