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  Take steps on SNF and HLW disposal
  Matt Bowen
  With a new administration and Congress, it is time once again to ponder what will happen—if anything—on U.S. spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste management policy over the next few years. One element of the forthcoming discussion seems clear: The executive and legislative branches are eager to talk about recycling commercial SNF. Whatever the merits of doing so, it does not obviate the need for one or more facilities for disposal of remaining long-lived radionuclides. For that reason, making progress on U.S. disposal capabilities remains urgent, lest the associated radionuclide inventories simply be left for future generations to deal with.
  In March, Rick Perry, who was secretary of energy during President Trump’s first administration, observed that during his tenure at the Department of Energy it became clear to him that any plan to move SNF “required some practical consent of the receiving state and local community.”¹
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To achieve the goal of net-zero carbon emission in energy production, nuclear power capacity and waste generation are expected to expand significantly in the next few decades. In the condition of continuous fuel recycling, long-lived fission products (LLFPs) are dominant contributors to the disposal impacts of nuclear waste. In this study, six LLFPs, including ⁹⁹Tc, ¹²⁹I, ¹³⁵Cs, ¹²⁶Sn, ⁹³Zr, and ⁷⁹Se, were identified as the primary contributors to more than 99% of long-term radiotoxicity of disposed nuclear waste across a wide range of fuel cycle scenarios. To reduce the amounts of LLFPs sent to geological repositories, the nuclear transmutation of LLFPs is being pursued. Specifically, this work systematically assessed the feasibility of transmuting LLFPs via photonuclear reactions. Photon transmutation is physically viable for the identified primary LLFPs except for ⁹⁹Tc. For the five transmutable LLFPs, the achievable photon transmutation performance without isotopic separation was evaluated based on scoping calculations and consideration of nuclear data uncertainties. Using an extremely intense laser Compton photon source of 10¹⁹ /s, the effective transmutation half-life can be reduced to a few years. However, the absolute transmutation rates of LLFPs remain below 1 kg/yr. The energy required to power the photon source for transmuting all LLFPs produced in a nuclear reactor exceeds the net energy output of the reactor. Several potential strategies for improving photon transmutation performance were analyzed. None can substantially enhance the performance to make it practical for industrial applications.