Americium incineration - Challenge in plutonium burning and minor actinide transmutation

Plutonium has to be considered as the major contributor to the potential risk of wastes from today's nuclear reactors. It has been shown that this Pu can be burnt and that a corresponding Pu fuel cycle can be closed. Unfortunately, the benefit from eliminating Pu from the nuclear wastes is almost compensated by an associated build-up of other actinides; thus, one has to realize that the potential hazard of the wastes is only reduced marginally by Pu recycling. The present paper discusses various problems which have to be faced when incinerating americium, whose radiotoxicity is dominating the waste problem, and other Minor Actinides (MAs) in fast critical reactors. It will also be shown that, when aiming at a significant reduction of radiotoxicity of the wastes from nuclear power production, once-through-then-out (OTTO) concepts cannot be a reasonable option and that it will be mandatory to include all MAs into a closed fuel cycle