The waste stream from PUREX reprocessing contains most of the radioactive
fission products in the spent fuel, along with small quantities of unextracted uranium and plutonium.
But, in 1982, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission laboratory calculated a hypothetical accident where the
fission products are released into the air and remain suspended indefinitely in respirable form over the nearest highly populated areas.
The MELCOR decay heat package models the decay heat power resulting from the radioactive decay of
fission products.
Evaluation of amaranth components and research of the polysaccharide component fermentation to fractional
fission products, UTB Zlin 2004.
The workshop concluded that the potential of current fusion technology to utilize the actinides for generating energy and destroying long-lived
fission products calls for a greater international effort in the area of fusion driven sub-critical systems
If this spent fuel is reprocessed to recover plutonium, these
fission products are concentrated to become high-level waste.
This technology allows the "breaking up" or "burning" of highly radioactive
fission products to reduce their toxicity and their life cycle, which can be hundreds of thousands of years.
For example, PBMR power systems will require making millions of spherical fuel elements a year to the exceedingly high and uniform quality levels needed to ensure that radioactive
fission products are retained in the fuel.
ATW systems are designed to destroy long-lived
fission products, reducing the time required for the waste to decay naturally from 10,000 to less than 1,000 years.
But its reprocessing becomes difficult because of increases in
fission products at high-temperature burning.
The criticality event tends to scatter the fissile material and
fission products in the area of the accident, and the dispersal of the fissile material normally prevents a prolonged chain reaction.
Inside these, spent nuclear fuel or solid uranium and
fission products would be stacked like poker chips within metal tubes.
