Nuclear waste set to power spacecraft

Britain’s nuclear waste could be used to power spacecraft as part of government attempts to offset the huge cost of the atomic clean-up by finding commercial uses for the world’s largest stock of civil plutonium.

A £1m pilot programme by the European Space Agency has shown that nuclear batteries for use on deep space missions could be made from an isotope found in decaying plutonium at the Sellafield waste storage site in Cumbria.

High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article.

Britain’s National Nuclear Laboratory has harvested americium-241 from the plutonium, produced from reprocessing fuel.

The ESA believes this could replace plutonium-238, only available from Russia and the US, and provide an independent source of energy for planned deep space missions to Jupiter and other distant planets.

Read More