At Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, nuclear chemists are researching how to make new fuel from used nuclear waste.
Atomic waste consists of heavy and radioactive substances such as plutonium, americium, curium and neptunium.
- We want to take this pile that is still fissile and make new fuel from it.
It will not be possible to become completely self-sufficient, but we can drive for quite a few thousand years, says Christian Ekberg who is a professor at the Department of Nuclear Chemistry in Gothenburg.
Uranium pellet
He holds up a small uranium pellet in his hand.
- As you run nuclear power today, you can get as much energy from this as if you were to burn 800 liters of oil.
But if we were to run generation-four systems, we could extract the equivalent of 64,000 liters of oil, says Christian Ekberg.
Only a few percent of the uranium in the pellet becomes energy and a large part is converted into heavy and radioactive substances such as plutonium.
Close the circle
Today, the Swedish nuclear waste is stored in the intermediate storage in Oskarshamn pending final disposal in the bedrock outside Forsmark.
If we expand the fourth generation of nuclear power, the waste can instead become fuel.
- We have to close the circle.
It is that you take out the used fuel, take advantage of what can be reused, make new fuel from it, then back into the reactor, and then circulate this.
This has not been done today on an industrial scale, says Christian Ekberg.
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