Scientists have a daring plan to transform nuclear waste into nuclear fuel

Nuclear merger has seen Some exciting advancesand the promise of clean and effective energy seems to be get closer to reality. But the skeptics highlight practical problems that we may not try strong enough to solve – emissions that will inevitably increase our reactors at their end.

A new proposal by Terence Tarnowsky, a nuclear physicist at LOS Alamos National Laboratory, focuses on a key element of the problem: finding a tritium supply, a fundamental ingredient for fusion. Tarnowsky, who will present his roadmap next week at ACS FALL 2025 Conference, suggests drawing in the thousands of tonnes of nuclear waste, including reactive fuel spent, using sleep atoms inside to support the production of tritium. With the right adjustments to an accelerator -type device, this strategy could reliably create an auto -sufficient source of the precious isotope.

In a successful fusion reactor, tritium and deuterium – two light hydrogen isotopes – rockets and release a gigantic energy load in the process. On the other hand, current nuclear power plants operate on fission, or the fractionation of heavy atoms such as uranium, which also generates a large amount of power but produces long-term radioactive by-products. This waste “(is) throughout the country”, probably for a million years, and costs hundreds of millions of dollars every year to manage, Tarnowsky told Gizmodo during a video call.

Meanwhile, the promise of fusion is shaded by an inevitable shortage of tritium, an extremely rare and unstable hydrogen isotope. “There are only tens of kilograms (of Tritium) – both natural and artificial – on the whole planet,” said Tarnowsky. And that does not help that nuclear experiences around the world burn these tiny supplies at an alarming rate. “So where is this tritium supposed to come from?”

Reproduction Tritium in Labs is a viable option, but again, there is a very good reason why we have not found the perfect recipe; It is a “delicate fuel to manage,” said Tarnowsky.

“If you raise Tritium now, it is not as if you could hide it in a container in 30 years, because it disintegrates very quickly with helium-3,” he said. “And he also has hydrogen chemistry. Hydrogen likes to get out of things; He likes to find himself stuck in the walls. So it’s a difficult thing to manage. ” For the context, the half-life of the tritium is 12.3 years, which means that it breaks down to half its original amount at that time.

Tarnowsky’s proposal combines previous theories with recent technological progress. Simply, the idea is to use an accelerator of particles to trigger the decrease of the atoms of uranium and plutonium inside nuclear waste, resulting in a series of neutron bursts and other nuclear transitions which would end up producing tritium atoms. Waste would be covered with melted lithium salt to protect the process from overexposure to harmful radiation, according to Tarnowsky.

With the right design, Tarnowsky assumes that this method could “Produce more than 10 times more tritium than a merger reactor at the same thermal power, “as indicated in the press release. That said, he admits that this roadmap would require daring commitments from the public and private sectors.

The fusion economy is irreversible in some respects, said Tarnowsky. This is certainly not something where we “can return a switch and have a backup system during execution if something is happening terribly bad with tritium breeding,” said Tarnowsky. “You must plan in advance by a very long period.”

But the more we wait, the more we dig essentially in a hole, he said. “Each year, we continue to exploit our nuclear power plants – very safely! – We also do more fuel spent each year, (which) increases around 2,000 metric tonnes per year. Thus, liabilities worsen each year. ”

That said, Tarnowsky remains full of hope for the future of nuclear merger – and, really, ending our transition to clean energy.

“I would say, you know, 10 years ago, this type of technology offered in this space would not have received so much interest; people were wary of nuclear power plants,” he said. “And then they went to burn dirty coal. Well, what are you going to do? But we have this conversation now, and people don’t simply react with fear.”