Neater solutions

May I suggest we also consider alternative ways of dealing with other nuclear "waste"?

I welcome IMechE's call to consider alternative ways of dealing with Britain's stockpile of plutonium. May I suggest we also consider alternative ways of dealing with other nuclear "waste"?

I have never felt entirely comfortable with burying waste that remains significantly radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years. For all I know, people may be living in deep underground cities by then. 

There are now a number of credible ways of using what has been considered to be nuclear "waste" as valuable fuel. Many involve dissolving the material in molten salts and adding easily obtainable thorium. 

Solid fuel reactors only extract about 3% of obtainable energy before contaminants inhibit fission. Liquid fuel promises 98% energy extraction as inhibitors can be continually removed allowing the long-half-life actinide products themselves to fission away.

Work in this area includes Japan's TTS (Thorium Technology Solution), Tranatomic Power's WAMSR (Waste-Annihilating Molten Salt Reactor) and even a method discovered by nuclear engineers at the University of Cambridge of modifying conventional reactors to use thorium mixed with plutonium and other actinide "waste".

Jon Michaelis, Derbyshire

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