This was the most interesting thing I read today, why are we not all throwing money at this guy? If radioactive waste can be managed in a short timescale it would make the wests ongoing energy crisis far more managable. It would remove one of the major problems regarding nuclear energy. It’s win-win.
Removing the dependance on Oil and Gas would be a huge boon. Right? *Stares at the Oil and Gas cartels, who draw guns*
The technique involves embedding the nuclear waste in a metal and cooling it to ultra-low temperatures. This speeds up the rate of decay of the radioactive materials potentially cutting their half lives by a factor of 100 or more.
Professor Rolfs added “We are currently investigating radium-226, a hazardous component of spent nuclear fuel with a half-life of 1600 years. I calculate that using this technique could reduce the half-life to 100 years. At best, I have calculated that it could be reduced to as little as two years. This would avoid the need to bury nuclear waste in deep repositories - a hugely expensive and difficult process.â€
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