> The idea is to transmute this nuclear waste into new forms of atoms which don’t have the problem of radioactivity. What you have to do is to change the makeup of the nucleus.
Ok, but what exactly is it transmuting the atom to?
Ok, but what exactly is it transmuting the atom to?
Here's the list of the 7 long-lived fission products [1]. The nastiest appears to be Caesium-135 [2]. If you zap this with a proton it becomes Barium-136, which is a stable element (the half-life is so long that it cannot be estimated; probably it is in the trillions of years).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-lived_fission_product#The...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_caesium#Caesium-13...
Also, will the end result still be energy positive? Even if the transmutation doesn’t add energy to the nucleus, that can be problematic, as that laser will need to be powered.
And of course, there’s the question of ‘aim’: can we really target individual atoms well enough to ‘hit’ them exactly once? (this might be fairly easy if the process requires specific energies that the radioactive atoms, once ‘hit’ no longer are sensitive to)
Depending where you start from and how do it. Here is an example: http://www.ipodphysics.com/resources/trans90.jpg
It's worth noting that transmutation is definitely possible. The alchemists of old would be thrilled to know that we can, in fact, make gold from base metals (in a nuclear reactor). The problem with that is that the cost of doing so is worth more than the gold could be sold for.