Transmutation of Nuclear Waste and the future MYRRHA Demonstrator

TL;DR

This paper discusses the concept of Partitioning & Transmutation for nuclear waste reduction, focusing on the MYRRHA project as a European accelerator-driven system demonstrator for transmutation technology.

Contribution

It provides an overview of P&T technology and highlights the MYRRHA project as a key demonstration of accelerator-driven transmutation systems.

Findings

MYRRHA is a European ADS demonstrator for nuclear waste transmutation.

ADS technology offers a promising solution for long-lived nuclear waste.

European collaboration has advanced the development of transmutation systems.

Abstract

While a considerable and world-wide growth of the nuclear share in the global energy mix is desirable for many reasons, there are also, in particular in the "old world" major objections. These are both concerns about safety, in particular in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear accident and concerns about the long-term burden that is constituted by the radiotoxic waste from the spent fuel. With regard to the second topic, the present contribution will outline the concept of Partitioning & Transmutation (P&T), as scientific and technological answer. Deployment of P&T may use dedicated "Transmuter" or "Burner" reactors, using a fast neutron spectrum. For the transmutation of waste with a large content (up to 50%) of (very long-lived) Minor Actinides, a sub-critical reactor, using an external neutron source is a most attractive solution. It is constituted by coupling a proton accelerator, a spallation target and a subcritical core. This promising new technology is named ADS, for accelerator-driven system. The present paper aims at a short introduction into the field that has been characterized by a high collaborative activity during the last decade in Europe, in order to focus, in its later part, on the MYRRHA project as the European ADS technology demonstrator.