Page 2 - Demo

confluence of laser technology, gamma technology, fusion, fission, nuclear chemistry, and material science.
I. Overview
Nuclear fission reactors generate a stream of radioactive nuclides of the spent fuel waste: in United States alone 90,000 metric tons requires disposal [ref. 1], and by 2020 the worldwide spent nuclear waste inventory will reach 200,000 metric tons with 10,000 tons added each year. For example, nuclear power accounts for 80% of electricity in France, making the need for transmutation increasingly important. Only working on the energy production side of nuclear energy (the “kitchen” side) is no longer sufficient, but we need to seriously consider the treatment of the waste (the “toilet” side) now. Roughly 2% of the spent nuclear fuel is in the form of long-lived transuraniums (Pu, Cm, Np, Am) and 0.25% in the form of the MA (Minor Actinides) (Np, Am, Cm), U and Pu are extracted from the original spent fuel using PUREX [1]. To this date, other than a deep earth burial of the radioactive spent fuel, there are no proper and adequate means that are currently available to dispense these isotopic radioactive materials although several countries reprocess plutonium and uranium into MOX fuel. This makes realization of the transmutation more acute. Current R&D research for the transmutation of TRU is based on possible burning of TRU in the Next generation of Fast Breeder Reactor [2], MOSART project [3] and [4] or in the ADS system (Accelerator Driven System) which consists of 100s MeV class proton superconducting Linear accelerator (600 MeV, 10 mA) coupled to subcritical core reactor loaded with TRU as fuel elements [5] and [6]. Other approaches employ fusion-fission hybrid technology [7] based on a laser-driven fusion reaction.