A team of researchers at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has begun to investigate the possibility of using fission reactor waste as fusion reactor fuel.
If nuclear fusion energy were to become available as a commercial energy source, then tritium, which can be found in nuclear waste, would be needed, LANL said in a Aug. 28 press release. Tritium is a version of hydrogen used to initiate nuclear fusion reactions.
With the help of computer simulations, LANL physicist and leader of the tritium production project Terence Tarnowsky has been evaluating potential tritium reactors that use a particle accelerator on used nuclear fuel to drive reactions that produce tritium.
The beam from the particle accelerator would generate neutrons in the molten salt and these neutrons can be used to produce tritium from dissolved lithium, according to the press release.
Los Alamos researchers said tritium finds its use in a fusion reactor when it combines with deuterium to release large amounts of energy while generating almost no waste.
The accelerator model has the capability to turn on and off and does not involve chain reactions, which could be a potential safety advantage over tritium produced through nuclear plants, according to the Los Alamos release.
According to Tarnowsky’s preliminary assessments, he said that a 2-gigawatt deuterium-tritium fusion energy plant, a system that generates energy via fusion initiated with deuterium-tritium fuel, will require 112 kilograms of tritium per year.
However, less than 25 kilograms of tritium is known to exist on the planet, according to the press release. With the United States having an abundance of nuclear waste, Tarnowsky said the used nuclear fuel could serve as an opportunity.
Tarnowsky said he is continuing to build on the recent modeling by seeking to evaluate the dollar cost for tritium production and the possibility of using molten lithium salt in the design.
