Tokamak Transmutation of (Nuclear) Waste (TTW): Parametric Studies

Radioactive waste generated as part of the commercial-power and defense nuclear programs can be either stored or transmuted. The latter treatment requires a capital-intensive neutron source and is reserved for particularly hazardous and long-lived actinide and fission-product waste. A comparative description of fusion-based transmutation is made on the basis of rudimentary estimates of energy-balance performance and transmutation capacities versus inventories for both ultra-low-aspect-ratio (spherical torus, ST) and conventional (aspect-ratio) tokamak fusion-power-core drivers. The parametric systems studies reported herein provides a preamble to more-detailed, cost-based systems analyses.