Deactivating Radioactive Waste In Hundreds, Not Millions, Of Years

[jody]

Deactivating Radioactive Waste In Hundreds, Not Millions, Of Years

ScienceDaily (Sep. 23, 2008) — It may be possible to dramatically reduce the radioactive waste isolation time -- from several million years to as little as 300 - 500 years. In order to decrease the isolation time for radioactive waste, first of all, the actinides - elements whose nuclei are heavier than uranium (i.e. curium, actinium) - must be removed from the waste by processing (transmutation) into short-lived nuclei.

“The core concept of transmutation – which was formulated as early as mid 20th century – consists of irradiating the actinides by fast neutrons. The highly stimulated nuclei that are generated this way suffer a fission, which leads to relatively short-lived nuclei, which in turn rapidly disintegrate into stable isotopes. Then, they cease to be radioactive,” explains Professor Helmut Leeb from the Atomic Institute of the Austrian Universities. Thus, the required radioactive waste isolation time of several millions years could be decreased to 300 and up to 500 years. The technological progress made in the last decades has made the transmutation possible at the industrial level.

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An essential prerequisite for this development is a thorough knowledge of the neutrons’ interaction and reactions with other materials as available to date. Therefore, in the year 2000, the n_Tof facility became operative at CERN (Genf), which is a unique facility in the world, suitable especially for measuring the reactions of radioactive materials when bombarded with neutrons. Between 2002 and 2005, a large number of radiative captures and fission reactions, previously insufficiently known, were measured as part of an EU project, in which nuclear physicists from TU Vienna were considerably involved.

[kristopher]

1. Another energy input required for an already marginally productive technology

The Energy Return on Energy Invested for nuclear is already lower than any other "source" technology. That number is getting worse as U becomes more difficult to mine, or even worse - with breeder technology.

This method of mitigating high level wastes looks energy intensive.

[Indenturedebtor]

2. Don't be such a spoilsport

When we have fusion technology we should be able to make fission more profitable :eyes:

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

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