Minor actinides burning in the 42-0 concept: the EU 'EFIT' (European Facility for Industrial Transmutation) ADS

Closure of the cycle is a key point for the public acceptance of the nuclear energy. This requires a sure way of treating the radioactive wastes, reducing dramatically the time they remain a potential hazard. Considering the Pu as a fuel rather than a waste, the long lived wastes to be treated are the Minor Actinides, Np, Am and Cm (MA). Because of their unfavorable dynamic behaviour (namely a very small efficiency), their content in a critical reactor, where can be fissioned, is limited to a few percent and their burning is consequently limited in absolute term. In an ADS (Accelerator Driven System), in which the reactivity is always below the criticality enough to avoid any risk of divergence, the MA load in its core can be much higher. The continuos lack of neutrons due to the sub-criticality is compensated by a neutrons, obtained via spallation by a beam of protons impinging on a target in the core centre