Have fast reactors lost the Midas touch?

摘要

Specialists in nuclear technologies must develop effective methods to dispose of the industry's wastes. Transmutation is often cited as an alternative to long-term storage of radionuclides in serviced and guarded buildings with stabilised temperature and pressure. There is a general consensus that transmutation of actinides can be most effectively achieved using fast reactors. This viewpoint rests on data that suggest all even isotopes of transuranium elements, except ~(238)Np and ~(242)Am, and the odd isotopes ~(237)Np, ~(241)Am, and ~(243)Am are fissioned in the fast spectrum more effectively than in a thermal reactor. But transmutation may also be effective in the thermal neutron spectrum, where even isotopes are easily transformed into odd ones, which are easily fissioned.