Basis and objectives of the Los Alamos Accelerator-Driven Transmutation technology project

The Accelerator-Driven Transmutation Technology (ADTT) Project carries three approaches for dealing with waste from the defense and commercial nuclear energy enterprise. First, the problem of excess weapons plutonium in the U.S. and Russia originating both from stockpile reductions and from defense production site clean-up is one of significant current and long-term concern. The ADTT technology offers the possibility of almost complete destruction of this plutonium by fission. The technology might be particularly effective for destruction of the low quality plutonium from defense site clean-up since the system does not require the fabrication of the waste into fuel assemblies, does not require reprocessing and refabrication, and can tolerate a high level of impurities in the feed stream. Second, the ADTT system also can destroy the plutonium, other higher actinide, and long-lived fission product from commercial nuclear waste which now can only be dealt with by geologic storage. And finally, and probably most importantly the system can be used for the production of virtually unlimited electric power from thorium with concurrent destruction of its long-lived waste components so that geologic containment for them is not required. In addition plutonium is not a significant byproduct of the power generation so that non-proliferation concerns about nuclear power are almost completely eliminated. All of the ADTT systems operate with an accelerator supplementing the neutrons which in reactors are provided only by the fission process, and therefore the system can be designed to eliminate the possibility for a runaway chain reaction. The means for integration of the accelerator into nuclear power technology in order to make these benefits possible is described including estimates of accelerator operating parameters required for the three objectives