Nuclear relativistic technologies for energy production and utilization of spent nuclear fuel: Results of first experiments on substantiation of nuclear relativistic technologies

Abstract

A fundamentally new scheme of the electronuclear method based on nuclear relativistic technologies is discussed; this scheme includes the formation and utilization of a limiting hard neutron spectrum in the volume of the deep subcritical active core. It is demonstrated that the development and application of nuclear relativistic technologies can be promising for solving the problem of utilizing spent nuclear fuel and global challenges of power production. The results of the first experiments performed at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research indicate the realistic character of the main principles of relativistic nuclear technologies, in particular, the growth of beam-power amplification by a factor of 2 for a deuteron beam irradiating a massive (315 kg) uranium target with the beam energy increasing from 1 to 4 GeV.