Accelerator-Driven Transmutation Technology for Energy Production and Nuclear Waste Treatment*

New concepts recently developed at Los Alamos show that the use of intense particle accelerators affords unique opportunities for electrical power generation, from plentiful fuel such as thorium, with little long term waste legacy. The concept can aLso effectively transmute existing actinide and fission product wastes. The physical processes to be used are different and more advanced than earlier ideas: the new concept uses the accelerator beam to generate intense flux levels (1015- 1016 n/cm2*sec) of thermal energy neutrons that efficiently transmute fuels or actinide wastes via a two-step capture/fission process, and also efficiently transmute fission products to stable or short-lived end-products. Effective cross sections for the actinide transmutation are enhanced at higher flux levels, and thermal-energy fission-product cross-section