How transmutation works
Tuesday, May 9, 2000 | 5:12 a.m.
Transmutation, the process of transforming matter, is being talked about as an alternative to burying high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.
How the process, which reduces the radioactive life almost a hundredfold, works with plutonium:
1. A neutral particle of matter is shot at high speed from an accelerator.
2. The neutron hits highly radioactive plutonium 239 and converts it into a less dangerous form of plutonium.
3. The less dangerous plutonium breaks up to fission products, which are less radioactive still. Those products give off neutral particles called neutrons.
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