ADVANCED technologies offer ways of reducing the quantity of nuclear waste, scientists in Finland claim.
“New types of nuclear power plants can switch to a closed fuel cycle,” says Professor Riitta Kyrki-Rajamäki, of Lappeenranta University of Technology.
“It means that nuclear waste wouldn’t be buried as such. Instead, it would be chemically dissolved and the recyclable component reprocessed into new fuel. As a result, many of the most long-lived radioactive substances could be used at new types of facilities.”
If true, this has to be good news for today’s young folk worried about the nuclear legacy irresponsibly bequeathed by their parents’ generation and that of their grandparents.
Prof Kyrki-Rajamäki heads the New Type Nuclear Reactors project, which is part of the Sustainable Energy Research Programme launched by the Academy of Finland.
The New Type Nuclear Reactors project studies what is known as “fourth-generation nuclear reactors”.
The main fields of science involved are reactor physics, reactor dynamics, materials technology, thermal hydraulics and computational fluid dynamics.
While the use of nuclear energy does not generate significant emissions of greenhouse gases or fine particles, the uranium resources required for current light-water reactors will apparently last for only the next 200 years.
If the number of nuclear power plants increases, the resources will be depleted even faster.
Currently, there are some 450 units in operation, with about 50 more being built. The British Government wants to build a new fleet of current technology reactors to replace existing worn out plant.
“The transition to new types of reactors over the next few decades would guarantee that the existing reserves of raw material for nuclear fuel would last for thousands of years to come,” says Prof Kyrki-Rajamäki.
However, she warns, too, that the new reactor concepts will present many challenges.
Recommended for you
