When it comes to nuclear power, the uranium at the heart of fuel rods is also this power source’s Achilles’ heel. When power plants shut down or the fuel rods in nuclear reactors become inefficient, the high-level nuclear waste resulting from the spent fuel created from running these plants could stay radioactive for thousands of years.…
Read More
The Energy Geosciences Division of Berkeley Lab has just released the Fifth Worldwide Review on International Approaches for Nuclear Waste Disposal in Geological Formations: Geological Challenges in Radioactive Waste Isolation. This book summarizes state-of-the-art radioactive waste disposal approaches in geological formations, with contributions from authors representing 23 countries. Since the Fourth Worldwide Review in 2006, advances in technologies, disposal…
Read More
The National Academy of Engineering has elected EESA’s Bob Budnitz as a new member in recognition of his contributions to seismic probabilistic risk assessments and their application to nuclear power facilities. He joins Berkeley Lab researchers Gerbrand Ceder (MSD) and Katherine Yelick (CS) for this honor. Read more…
Read More
It has been nearly 10 years since our friend, colleague, leader, former Director of the Earth Sciences Division, passed away leaving the Earth Sciences family so abruptly at LBNL. Dr. Gudmundur Bodvarsson, or Bo as we all came to know him as, passed away on November 29, 2006. There will be several activities and formats…
Read More
“High Performance, Multidisciplinary Simulations for Regional Scale Seismic Hazard and Risk Assessments” is one of two Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), Earth and Environmental Sciences Area-led projects recently selected by the DOE Exascale Computing Project (ECP) to be funded at about $3M over the next three years. The project will be led by David…
Read More
“An Exascale Subsurface Simulator of Coupled Flow, Transport, Reactions and Mechanics” is one of two Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), Earth and Environmental Sciences Area-led projects recently selected by the Department of Energy (DOE) Exascale Computing Project (ECP) to be funded at $10M over the next four years. Berkeley Lab Principal Investigator, Carl Steefel…
Read More
Berkeley Lab hosted the Kick-Off Workshop on May 18-20, 2016 for a new phase of the DECOVALEX Project, which is an international research and model comparison collaboration, consisting of a number of nuclear waste management organizations and regulatory authorities with several contributing research teams.
Read More
Energy Geosciences Division Director Jens Birkholzer was recently named the Chairman of the DECOVALEX Project, which is an international research and model comparison collaboration, consisting of a number of nuclear waste management organizations and regulatory authorities with several contributing research teams. DECOVALEX which stands for DEvelopment of COupled models and their VALidation against EXperiments, has…
Read More
At IAEA headquarters in Vienna, Austria, Boris Faybishenko (Earth & Environmental Sciences, LBNL) participated in a July 2015 workshop on preparation of an IAEA Technical Report on Remediation of Groundwater and Acid and Metalliferous Drainage (AMD) at Uranium Mining Sites. Boris, who is an IAEA Technical Expert, and colleagues from Australia, Canada, USA and Czech Republic, will…
Read More
Berkeley Lab helped organize the recent Pacific Rim Forum on the Earthquake Resilience of Nuclear Facilities—the overarching objective of which was to share lessons for enhancing the earthquake resilience of nuclear facilities.
Read More