EU support for nuclear research infrastructures

Transmutation of nuclear waste and innovative reactor systems are two key issues for the present and future use of nuclear energy. For this purpose, European nuclear facilities are cooperating to perform nuclear measurements for the future design of such transmutation systems.

During operation of a nuclear reactor, the by-products of nuclear fission of uranium cause significant radiotoxicity. Coupled with the long lifetimes of such isotopes, there is therefore a need to develop strategies for their transmutation into short-lived fission products.

The radiotoxicity of plutonium is estimated to be 200 000 years. If it could be transmutated, the time frame required for safe final disposal will be reduced to less than 1 000 years. To design nuclear reactor cores capable of transmutation, precise nuclear data with fast neutrons are required.

The EU-funded 'European research infrastructures for nuclear data applications' (Erinda) project is aiming to collate the necessary data to be able to develop transmutation systems. For this purpose, the Erinda consortium has included all relevant time-of-flight facilities for fast neutrons, charged-particle accelerators and experimental nuclear reactors in Europe.

These facilities have agreed to provide 2 500 hours of beam time during the project as transnational access to European groups, including technical and travel support for the user groups. This amount corresponds to 25 typical experiments.

More details can be found at the following link: http://cordis.europa.eu/fetch?CALLER=OFFR_TM_EN&ACTION=D&RCN=10901