In February, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson first offered transmutation as an alternative to burying 77,000 tons of commercial and defense wastes that could end up in Yucca Mountain after 2010, if the site passes scientific muster. The technology does not eliminate the need for a repository, but the most dangerous nuclear materials would be transformed into lower-level waste that would lose its radioactivity in 300 years or less, as opposed to more than 24,000 years without the technology. Without transmutation, highly radioactive nuclear wastes such as plutonium and neptunium take from 24,500 years to 2.3 million years to become harmless. Transmutation, however, will not work for an estimated 7,000 tons of defense wastes, which are not solid and are very unstable. That waste must be converted to glass logs or encased in ceramic logs to be safe enough to move, then buried deep underground.
Scientists say chances of success on transmutation research are good.
The main question is whether the process can be cost-effective and how quickly it can be made available to take care of the nuclear waste stockpiles.