The US Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) is awarding $40 million to projects to pursue transmutation technologies that would reduce the impact of used nuclear fuel (UNF) in permanent storage facilities. Transmutation is a process in which an isotope is converted to a different isotope or element through a nuclear reaction.

ARPA-E’s Nuclear Energy Waste Transmutation Optimized Now (NEWTON) program will pursue transmutation technologies to significantly reduce the mass, volume, activity, and effective half-life of the existing stockpile of commercial UNF, which would shift UNF disposal from an intergenerational issue to an intragenerational one.

Today, the United States does not have an active facility for the permanent disposal of UNF derived from the civilian nuclear sector. The estimated cost of a deep geological UNF disposal facility is more than $96 billion over its 150-year lifetime—the point after which it would stop accepting new UNF. NEWTON seeks to enable the economic viability of transmutation of the entirety of the US commercial UNF stockpile within 30 years.

NEWTON projects will develop a variety of approaches including advanced particle beam technologies, the design and processing of transmutable target materials, and comprehensive analyses to support efficient nuclear transmutation and waste reduction.