Nuclear Development ACTINIDE AND FISSION PRODUCT PARTITIONING AND TRANSMUTATION

Partitioning and transmutation (P&T) aims at making nuclear energy more sustainable from the viewpoint of the back-end of the fuel cycle by minimising the high-level waste with respect to its mass, radiotoxicity and (possibly) repository risk. P&T mainly deals with the management – i.e. transmutation and/or special conditioning and confinement – of minor actinides and fission products, but involves the closure of the fuel cycle for plutonium as a necessary first or parallel step. The conditions for a completely closed fuel cycle, the goals for transmutation, and the implications for the reactor and fuel cycle technology are overviewed and discussed, and the currently favoured transmutation strategies are compared with respect to achievable waste radiotoxicity reduction and impact on the releases of potentially troublesome actinides from a repository for vitrified high-level waste. 2 Under contract with Federal Office of Energy, CH-3003 Bern, Switzerland.