Toxicity Reduction with Total Volume Control in Nuclear Waste

Abstract

When total volume control is applied to toxicity in nuclear waste management it becomes a limiting factor for the permittable total operating capacity of nuclear reactors. An alternative conceptual scenario is proposed, aimed at toxicity reduction through partitioning and transmutation. Specifically, the electricity generation capacity could be increased by transmutation of ⁹⁰Sr and ¹³⁷Cs. Simultaneously, the cooling time before disposal is reduced to 50 years from the 300 years required by existing scenarios, such as the accelerator-driven system. Finally, the scenario is also found to be feasible in terms of energy balance and cost, using an Li(d,xn) reaction neutron source with a deuteron accelerator for transmutation.

Keywords:

• Nuclear waste
• total volume control
• toxicity
• accelerator, transmutation

Acknowledgments

The authors appreciate Dr. K. Yokoyama of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency who gave valuable comments about isotope separation, and Dr. T. Sato of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency who gave valuable comments on the use of the PHITS code.