Page 5 - Demo

fuel management and we do not necessarily stick to a particular policy. This invention then may be accommodated in other approaches.
II. The Transmutator
The transmutator concept rests upon the P&T of spent fuel, specifically we propose to partition TRU’s and LLFP from the spent fuel for the purposes of transmutation. In order to operate an industrial size transmutation machine, 2 critical conditions must be satisfied: (1) large rate of “cheap” neutron, (2) safety. To satisfy both conditions, in this paper we describe a liquid phased subcritical operation of transmutation driven by a laser neutron source; safety requirement is satisfied by operation in the subcritical mode. To drive the neutron source, deuterons are accelerated using the Coherent Acceleration of Ions by Laser (CAIL) [12],[13] and injected onto a solid target (e.g.TiD2 or D2O) or into a dense ionized deuterium/tritium gas to produce fusion neutrons. The transmutator assembly is maintained subcritical at all times and all space. Subcritical operation allows for the ultimate safe operation since there is never a chance of a meltdown or a runaway as is in a super-critical operation. However, the subcritical assembly requires a detailed spatial and temporal monitoring.
Even though the transmutator is subcritical and requires external neutron source at all times, it can be net energy producing. The process relies on 4 steps with each being energy catapulting: (1) OPCPA laser generates low energy (100 keV) deuteron beam by the process known as Coherent Acceleration of Ions by Laser (CAIL). (2) The deuteron beam fuses with tritium to generate 14 MeV neutron. (3) The neutron fission minor actinides producing 200 MeV. (4) Finally, the energy is multiplied by 1/(1-keff) (such as 50) giving 105 energy multiplication.
To increase the efficiency in step 2 an ionizing laser is used as suggested for clusters [14], [15] or for solids [16],[17],[18]. The pre-pulse laser will precede the OPCPA laser and