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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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Latest News
No impact from Savannah River radioactive wasps
The news is abuzz with recent news stories about four radioactive wasp nests found at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The site has been undergoing cleanup operations since the 1990s related to the production of plutonium and tritium for defense purposes during the Cold War. Cleanup activities are expected to continue into the 2060s.
Gregory J. Van Tuyle, Michael Todosow, Marcia J. Geiger, Arnold L. Aronson, H. Takahashi
Nuclear Technology | Volume 101 | Number 1 | January 1993 | Pages 1-17
Technical Paper | Waste Management Special / Enrichment and Reprocessing System | doi.org/10.13182/NT93-A34764
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A means of transmuting key long-lived nuclear wastes, primarily the minor actinides (neptunium, americium, and curium) and iodine, using a hybrid proton accelerator and subcritical lattice, is proposed. By partitioning the components of the light water reactor (LWR) spent fuel and by transmuting key elements, such as the plutonium, the minor actinides, and a few of the long-lived fission products, some of the most significant challenges in building a waste repository can be substantially reduced. The proposed machine, based on the described PHOENIX Concept, would transmute the minor actinides and the iodine produced by 75 LWRs and would generate usable electricity (beyond that required to run the large accelerator) of 850 MW(electric).