Challenges and potential benefits of partitioning and transmutation (P and T)

Partitioning and transmutation is considered a means of reducing the burden on a geological repository. It can be shown that the radiotoxicity inventory can be reduced by as much as a factor of 10 if all plutonium is recycled in reactors. Reduction factors higher than 100 can be obtained if, in addition, the minor actinides are burned. A prerequisite for these reduction figures is nearly complete actinide elimination by fission, for which multi-recycling is required. To achieve this, however, there are still a number of outstanding challenges to be met, especially in the fields of separation and fuel development. (authors)