1. Safe and Abundant Energy from Accelerator-Driven Nuclear Fission by Alex Kiss

2. Energy Issues World population and economy are growing fast Coal, oil, gas are non-renewable resources, when these sources run out... New sources of energy (mainly electrical energy) will eventually be needed Nuclear fusion, an almost unlimited source of energy, is not expected to be developed for decades if it is at all.

4. Nuclear Fission Nuclear fission reactors are a good source of energy, but their current methods are creating long-lived radioactive waste with half-lives of thousands to millions of years However, new developments on earlier ideas have sprung a new energy option: Accelerator and Fission reactor technologies merged into a single system that deals with the problem of long-term waste.

5. How It Works A high energy proton beam produced by the accelerator strikes a target, producing neutrons used to drive a blanket assembly containing fissionable fuel (1 p +, 20-30 n 0 ) Blanket assembly is like a reactor in that fission is the source of power but unlike one because it is sub-critical and cannot sustain a chain reaction without the accelerator

7. Blanket Energy producing, resembles nuclear reactor Consists of moderator and fissile fuel Moderator: made of graphite, used to slow the fast neutrons down to thermal energies to be most effective in producing fission in the fuel Fuel: liquid, molten salt that flows through the moderator

8. Target The target which the proton beam hits must be compact yet capable of handling the several megawatts of energy from the beam It would consist of a central vessel filled with molten lead The beam enters through the top of the vessel and penetrates deep into the lead, producing spallation neutrons

9. Fissile Fuel The fuel is thorium, which occurs naturally and abundantly as the element 232 Th, with a small amount of enriched uranium The thorium is readily transmuted by neutrons to the easily fissionable 233 U The molten salt fuel is made of LiF:BeF 2 :ThF 4 equal to 70:18:12 by mole % along with a small fraction of 238 UF 4.

10. Blanket Processes Once the accelerator is turned on and neutrons are produced, the 232 Th becomes 233 Th, which beta-decays to 233 Pr, after 27 days this then beta-decays to the easily fissionable 233 Ur (It takes a while for the 233 Ur to be produced so a small amount of 238 Ur is added to the startup fuel) Heat exchangers located in the blanket produce electrical energy with steam

11. Reuse of Waste Radioactive byproducts formed during fission continually separated from the salt Long-lived isotopes are extracted from the stable, short-lived ones and returned to the system to be reused and converted to stable, short-lived ones So the real waste is almost all stable, short-lived isotopes and not a problem to store, perhaps even at the site.

13. Other Uses Besides Energy Destroy both the surplus plutonium accumulated in the weapons stockpile as well as spent commercial nuclear fuel With this accelerator-driven system, large amounts of electrical energy would be produced to pay for solving the problem of radioactive waste disposal