US Particle Accelerators Turn Nuclear Waste into Electricity, Cut Radioactive Life by 99.7%
Particle accelerator technologies, such as this niobium-tin particle accelerator cavity, are inspiring efforts to reduce the radioactivity of nuclear waste while also using it to generate electricity.
March 2, 2026
Researchers at the Department of Energy (DOE) Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility are advancing two high-stakes projects aimed at optimizing Accelerator-Driven Systems (ADS).
The initiative focuses on a dual-purpose breakthrough: generating additional carbon-free electricity from spent nuclear fuel while drastically reducing its radioactive lifespan.
The projects are supported by $8.17 million in grants from the Department of Energy’s NEWTON (Nuclear Energy Waste Transmutation Optimized Now) program and represent a shift from treating used nuclear fuel as a permanent liability to viewing it as a recyclable fuel source.
The researchers are developing ADS technology.
This system uses a particle accelerator to fire high-energy protons at a target (such as liquid mercury), triggering a process called “spallation.”
This releases a flood of neutrons that interact with unwanted, long-lived isotopes in nuclear waste.
The technology can effectively “burn” the most hazardous components of the waste by transmuting these elements.
While unprocessed fuel remains dangerous for approximately 100,000 years, partitioning and recycling via ADS can reduce that window to just 300 years.
Enhancing Accelerator Efficiency for Economic Viability
The process also generates significant heat, which can be harnessed to produce additional electricity for the grid.
Latvian startup Deep Space Energy is developing a compact radioisotope power generator that it says can deliver the same output as legacy space nuclear systems while using five times less fuel.
“Instead of having a lifetime of 100,000 years in storage, for example, you can shorten the storage years down to 300,” said Rongli Geng, head of SRF Science & Technology at Jefferson Lab and principal investigator for both projects.
To make ADS economically viable, Jefferson Lab is tackling two primary technical hurdles: efficiency and power.
Traditional particle accelerators require massive, expensive cryogenic cooling systems to reach superconducting temperatures.
Jefferson Lab is pioneering a more cost-effective approach by coating the interior of pure niobium cavities with tin.
These niobium-tin cavities can operate at higher temperatures, allowing for the use of standard commercial cooling units rather than custom, large-scale cryogenic plants.
The team is also developing spoke cavities, which are a complex design intended to drive even higher efficiency in neutron spallation.
Implementing High-Power Magnetrons
The second project focuses on the power source behind the beam.
Researchers are adapting the magnetron—the same component that powers microwave ovens—to provide the 10 megawatts of power required for ADS.
The primary challenge is that the energy frequency must match the accelerator cavity precisely at 805 Megahertz.
In collaboration with Stellant Systems, researchers are prototyping advanced magnetrons that can be combined to reach the necessary high-power thresholds with maximum efficiency.
The NEWTON program aims to enable the recycling of the entire US commercial nuclear fuel stockpile within the next 30 years.
By including industry partners like RadiaBeam, General Atomics, and Stellant Systems from the start, Jefferson Lab is ensuring these technologies move quickly from the laboratory to commercial manufacturing.
These projects offer a potential solution to the long-standing debate over permanent geological repositories, shifting the paradigm from long-term burial to active, productive reuse.
“The challenge is to really translate the accelerator science from where we are right now in terms of technology readiness to where the technology needs to be for this application,” concluded Geng.
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Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab) are developing Accelerator-Driven Systems (ADS) that use particle accelerators to transmute long-lived nuclear waste into shorter-lived isotopes.
This process not only reduces the radioactive lifespan of spent nuclear fuel but also generates heat that can be converted into carbon-free electricity.
The system fires high-energy protons from a particle accelerator at a target material, such as liquid mercury, triggering a reaction called spallation.
This releases a cascade of neutrons that interact with hazardous isotopes in the nuclear waste, effectively “burning” them by converting them into safer, shorter-lived elements.
The fission reactions produce substantial heat, which can then be harnessed to generate electricity for the grid.
This is still in the research and development phase, funded by $8.17 million from the DOE’s NEWTON (Nuclear Energy Waste Transmutation Optimized Now) program.
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🙄 just doing everything they can to keep from bringing out advanced energy tech.. like types of ZPE.. they are trying to disguise other tech as "breakthroughs" when they just want something they can meter and charge you for it. Sad.