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Spent fuel recycling and conditioning topic of U.S.-Japan meeting
Officials with the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management discussed spent nuclear fuel recycling and conditioning with counterparts from Japan during the 13th U.S.-Japan Technical Meeting of the Civil Nuclear Energy Research and Development Working Group, held recently in Santa Fe, N.M.
Eric V. Steinfelds, James S. Tulenko
Nuclear Technology | Volume 174 | Number 1 | April 2011 | Pages 119-123
Technical Paper | Energy Conversion Systems Using Radioisotopes | doi.org/10.13182/NT11-A11685
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The paper describes a micronuclear battery that utilizes the conversion of beta particles into photons and back into electrons through a photoelectric cell to potentially deliver a nuclear battery of higher efficiency than other nuclear battery concepts and with much greater energy per gram and lifetime than chemical batteries. The Monte Carlo nuclear code MCNP has been used to analyze the performance of the proposed battery, and the photoelectric stage has been shown to be insensitive to the expected radiation for at least 1 yr of performance.