Nuclear Energy Handbook

The Energy Amplifier Project (CSR4)

external URL: http://www.crs4.it/Areas/ea/

In 1993 the Director General of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and 1984 Physics Nobel Laureate C. Rubbia presented to his colleagues of CERN a simple concept for clean energy production and elimination of nuclear waste. Such a revolutionary machine, which he called the Energy Amplifier (EA), is the result of a "cross-fertilization" between the technology of modern accelerators and that of nuclear power production. In contrast to an ordinary reactor, the EA produces energy (in the form of heat) as a result of nuclear cascades, rather than of a self-sustained chain reaction. Nuclear cascades are initiated by relativistic protons produced by a small, but efficient, accelerator and the risks of a Chernobyl-type accident are intrinsically eliminated. The use of an external source of neutrons allows the exploitation of the Thorium cycle, a mere dream for the nuclear engineers in the sixties, because it opens the way to an unlimited source of energy and virtually eliminates the production of Actinides, the most offending contribution to nuclear waste. In past years, such ideas have been developed using sophisticated computer simulations and CFD calculations and are now a leading European project in the field of future energy production and nuclear radioactive waste transmutation.
URL: http://www.crs4.it/Areas/ea/
language: English
originator: university, laboratory or research organisation
country: Italy
access: open to the general public
type of data: textual information
type of site: non-commercial site
related sites: Center for Advanced Studies, Research and Development in Sardinia | CERN
subject category: research institutes and laboratories | nuclear research institutes
INIS/ETDE category: radioactive waste management | nuclear physics including radiation physics
keywords: accelerator driven systems | nuclear waste | transmutation