Fuel. Rosatom is making a pilot attempt to use nuclear fuel impregnated with minor actinides. The BN-800 fast neutron reactor installed at Beloyarsk Unit 4 was for the first time ever loaded with mixed uranium plutonium oxide fuel containing americium-241 and neptunium-237. These are minor actinides, the most radiotoxic and long-lived elements found in irradiated nuclear fuel. “Fast neutron reactors have an advantage of eliminating minor actinides, thus reducing the amount of radioactive waste from the entire nuclear fuel infrastructure,” says Ivan Sidorov, Director of the Beloyarsk NPP. According to research estimates, burning minor actinides makes it possible for nuclear waste to become equivalent to natural uranium in terms of radiation in just 300 years of isolation, or 2,300 times faster than usual.
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