A former CERN scientist working for private nuclear fission company Transmutex has developed a new method that could drastically reduce the radioactivity of nuclear waste by as much as 80 percent.
The Swiss-based company Transmutex’s technology was reviewed over several months by Nagra, the Swiss national agency that manages nuclear waste, which also produced the estimate.
While the operational safety of nuclear fission reactors has often received attention, even more attention needs to be paid to the safety of spent fuel, which remains radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years after the energy extracted from it has been used up.
Nuclear fission technology is making a comeback as countries seek to move away from fossil fuels. At last year’s COP28, 20 countries committed to tripling their nuclear generating capacity over the next 25 years, but they have yet to draw up a plan for long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel.
Interesting Engineering We previously reported that Finland plans to store nuclear fuel 1,000 feet below sea level for more than 100,000 years.
But as countries ramp up nuclear energy production, more such facilities will be needed unless technological innovations like Transmutex are adopted.
What is Transmutex Technology?
As the name suggests, transmutation relies on elemental transmutation, the conversion of an element into its isotope or an entirely different element. Technically speaking, this is the same principle that alchemists tried to apply in the past to turn metals into gold.
Where the alchemists failed, the former CERN scientists could succeed: They propose using a particle accelerator to convert slightly radioactive elements such as thorium into isotopes of uranium.
The accelerator is connected to a nuclear fission plant, where the newly produced uranium is immediately processed, but unlike the uranium used in today’s nuclear power plants, this uranium does not produce plutonium or other highly radioactive waste.
The technology is the brainchild of Carlo Rubbia, former director of the Physics Laboratory at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).
Obstacles along the way
While Rubia may have had access to a particle accelerator at his previous workplace, nuclear power plants don’t have that luxury, and building a particle accelerator near each power plant could be quite expensive, considering that CERN spent nearly $5 billion to build the Large Hadron Collider.
Another challenge is opposition to nuclear technology itself. Interesting Engineering We’ve previously reported on how Germany has phased out its nuclear power plants, and Switzerland has similar plans for its four existing nuclear plants.
If the government is convinced, Transmutex’s technology could be a lifesaver for these plants. Transmutex is raising private capital for its technology, but Nagra’s reputation is also a big boost.
According to the Swiss national agency, Transmutex’s technology could help reduce the amount of nuclear waste generated by 80 percent and shorten the time it remains radioactive to less than 500 years. More importantly, the technology could be applied to 99 percent of existing nuclear waste.
In terms of operational safety, a nuclear facility powered by Transmutex can be shut down in just two milliseconds, an unprecedented step with fission technology, the company said in a statement.
About the Editor
Ameya Pareja Ameya is a science writer based in Hyderabad, India. He’s a molecular biologist at heart who put down his micropipette to write science during the pandemic, and he has no plans to go back. He loves writing about genetics, microbiology, technology, and public policy.
