Guardian – What do you get when you cross an accelerator with a nuclear reactor?
Guardian – What do you get when you cross an accelerator with a nuclear reactor?
09 Corrinne Burns | February 2012
An abundant source of nuclear energy with no danger of meltdown, and a possible solution to the world’s energy crisis
Professor Bob Cywinski is every inch the academic: a wavy-haired, bearded man with a voice like hot coffee poured on a Sunday morning. But he is also a man with a dream: to change the nuclear landscape of the UK.
Conventional nuclear power (fission) is controversial and carries inherent risks, but no other energy source has a chance of securing our energy needs for the future. Nuclear fusion – for many scientists the ultimate goal of energy production – is still a long way off.
Cywinski is part of a team of scientists who are working towards an entirely new type of nuclear reactor: one that could be operated safely and without generating long-lived radioactive waste. This new reactor could even consume the toxic waste generated by conventional nuclear reactors, removing it from the ecosphere.
It’s called the Accelerator-Driven Subcritical Reactor (ADSR), or Energy Amplifier, and in a recent lecture hosted by the Leicester Literary and Philosophical Society, Cywinski outlined his vision of an ADSR-powered future.
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