US Particle Accelerators Turn Nuclear Waste Into Electricity, Cut Radioactive Life By 99.7% (interestingengineering.com)
(Saturday February 21, 2026 @05:00AM (BeauHD)
from the enhancing-accelerator-efficiency dept.)
- Reference: 0180834358
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/02/21/0043212/us-particle-accelerators-turn-nuclear-waste-into-electricity-cut-radioactive-life-by-997
- Source link: https://interestingengineering.com/energy/us-tech-nuclear-waste-into-power
Researchers at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility are advancing [1]Accelerator-Driven Systems (ADS) that use high-energy proton beams to [2]transmute long-lived nuclear waste into shorter-lived isotopes . "The process also generates significant heat, which can be harnessed to produce additional electricity for the grid," reports Interesting Engineering. The projects are supported by $8.17 million in grants from the Department of Energy's NEWTON (Nuclear Energy Waste Transmutation Optimized Now) program. From the report:
> The researchers are developing ADS technology. This system uses a particle accelerator to fire high-energy protons at a target (such as liquid mercury), triggering a process called "spallation." This releases a flood of neutrons that interact with unwanted, long-lived isotopes in nuclear waste. The technology can effectively "burn" the most hazardous components of the waste by transmuting these elements. While unprocessed fuel remains dangerous for approximately 100,000 years, partitioning and recycling via ADS can reduce that window to just 300 years. [...]
>
> To make ADS economically viability, Jefferson Lab is tackling two primary technical hurdles: efficiency and power. Traditional particle accelerators require massive, expensive cryogenic cooling systems to reach superconducting temperatures. Jefferson Lab is pioneering a more cost-effective approach by coating the interior of pure niobium cavities with tin. These niobium-tin cavities can operate at higher temperatures, allowing for the use of standard commercial cooling units rather than custom, large-scale cryogenic plants. The team is also developing spoke cavities, which is a complex design intended to drive even higher efficiency in neutron spallation.
>
> The second project focuses on the power source behind the beam. Researchers are adapting the magnetron -- the same component that powers microwave ovens -- to provide the 10 megawatts of power required for ADS. The primary challenge is that the energy frequency must match the accelerator cavity precisely at 805 Megahertz. In collaboration with Stellant Systems, researchers are prototyping advanced magnetrons that can be combined to reach the necessary high-power thresholds with maximum efficiency. The NEWTON program aims to enable the recycling of the entire US commercial nuclear fuel stockpile within the next 30 years.
[1] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/accelerator-driven-nuclear-energy
[2] https://interestingengineering.com/energy/us-tech-nuclear-waste-into-power
> The researchers are developing ADS technology. This system uses a particle accelerator to fire high-energy protons at a target (such as liquid mercury), triggering a process called "spallation." This releases a flood of neutrons that interact with unwanted, long-lived isotopes in nuclear waste. The technology can effectively "burn" the most hazardous components of the waste by transmuting these elements. While unprocessed fuel remains dangerous for approximately 100,000 years, partitioning and recycling via ADS can reduce that window to just 300 years. [...]
>
> To make ADS economically viability, Jefferson Lab is tackling two primary technical hurdles: efficiency and power. Traditional particle accelerators require massive, expensive cryogenic cooling systems to reach superconducting temperatures. Jefferson Lab is pioneering a more cost-effective approach by coating the interior of pure niobium cavities with tin. These niobium-tin cavities can operate at higher temperatures, allowing for the use of standard commercial cooling units rather than custom, large-scale cryogenic plants. The team is also developing spoke cavities, which is a complex design intended to drive even higher efficiency in neutron spallation.
>
> The second project focuses on the power source behind the beam. Researchers are adapting the magnetron -- the same component that powers microwave ovens -- to provide the 10 megawatts of power required for ADS. The primary challenge is that the energy frequency must match the accelerator cavity precisely at 805 Megahertz. In collaboration with Stellant Systems, researchers are prototyping advanced magnetrons that can be combined to reach the necessary high-power thresholds with maximum efficiency. The NEWTON program aims to enable the recycling of the entire US commercial nuclear fuel stockpile within the next 30 years.
[1] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/accelerator-driven-nuclear-energy
[2] https://interestingengineering.com/energy/us-tech-nuclear-waste-into-power
Hope this is true. (Score:2)
by The_Dougster ( 308194 )
IDK, this sounds pretty good. Tell me more...
Interesting, but impractical (Score:2)
Can it generate enough to power at least the part of the beam that feeds it? And can it reprocess anything but a tiny amount?
The answer is very likely "no" to both questions and likely to remain so.
Re:Interesting, but impractical (Score:4, Informative)
As long as the energy demands are not excessive, this alone makes it worth it...
> While unprocessed fuel remains dangerous for approximately 100,000 years, partitioning and recycling via ADS can reduce that window to just 300 years.
History indicates no human construct can reliably safeguard nuke waste for 100K years. But 300 years? That's do-able!
Storing waste is easy (Score:3)
The waste from the Oklo natural nuclear reactor has moved only centimeters in the last 2 billion years. So we know if you just bury the waste in the right type of rock you will be fine. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor
Re: (Score:2)
NIMBY!
Re: (Score:2)
Sure. If you know to solve a problem nicely, you know how to solve that problem nicely. There is just one tiny problem with that type of "argument".
Re: (Score:2)
On the other hand, Oklo is 1.7 billion years old, and any geological structure at that age is exceptionally quiet from a geological point of view. If this region was any more active, we would not have anything of Oklo left, except traces of it thousands of miles away. If you find 1.7 billion years old bedrock, it might be a good idea to store 10 pounds of nuclear waste in it - because that's the total mass deficit of U-235 recorded for Oklo. To put things in perspective, 10 lb of U-235, when spent, return 3
Re: (Score:2)
It will never be economically viable though. From a business perspective 100,000 years and 300 years are the same thing, a huge cost that has no return on investment. They will have to be forced to do it.
Re: (Score:2)
Yep. But that force would need to come from the population, and the average voter does not even understand why their cost of living has gone up dramatically this year, despite that being blatantly obvious. Expect nothing to come from this discovery, at least regarding nuclear waste.
Re: (Score:2)
If it's net energy positive then that alone is reason enough to do it.
Re: (Score:2)
300 years? Have you taken _any_ look at human history at all?
Green Goalposts. (Score:1)
> Can it generate enough to power at least the part of the beam that feeds it? And can it reprocess anything but a tiny amount?
> The answer is very likely "no" to both questions and likely to remain so.
Does it solve for a highly radioactive and dangerous problem plaguing a planet too ignorant to understand solar and wind ain’t gonna cut it no matter how loudly Greta screeches?
The answer is most likely Yes.
Everyone on this project needs to stop moving the fucking goalposts for greenies sake and remember the project goal. I don’t care if the beam is inefficient. It’s a hell of a lot more efficient than watching Greed N. Corruption in the nuclear waste industry poison a planet and then h
Re: (Score:2)
If it doesn't "reprocess anything but a tiny amount" it doesn't "solve for a highly radioactive and dangerous problem".
Re: (Score:3)
> The answer is most likely Yes.
The answer is most likely that you are a clueless cretin with strong opinions built entirely on lies.
Re: (Score:2)
> Does it solve for a highly radioactive and dangerous problem plaguing a planet
No. Every fuel campaign of any one reactor releases hundreds of tons of materials of various levels of radioactivity, over 1k isotopes in all, each and every one of them with their own peculiarities of decay. This translates to millions of moles * 6.10^23 nuclei that the technology has to deal with. The cross-sections for most of these are vanishingly small and you need several decay steps per every product of every nuclei to make it non-radioactive.
So, let's say you want to dispose of the load from one re
Re: (Score:2)
> to tens of hundreds of thousands of particles per second
FTFM.
Re: Interesting, but impractical (Score:1)
Since this is still a basic research project, of course the answer is no; there's no need for a commertial level system yet, they're working the basics out. If the new chamber and design work out, that could change to yes.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. This would need to be financially positive to matter. It will not be. Hence it is a meaningless stunt, probably designed to convince the stupid that nuclear waste is not a problem. And it will work in that capacity.