Dec 12 - United Press International

A Dutch scientist predicts a new generation of nuclear reactors will create energy while producing virtually no long-lasting nuclear waste.

Wilfred van Rooijen of the Delft University of Technology received his doctorate based on research conducted at the Reactor Institute Delft. He focused on the nuclear fuel cycle and safety features of Gas-cooled Fast Reactors, or GFR -- one of the so-called fourth generation nuclear reactor designs.

Fourth generation GFRs are economical in their use of nuclear fuel and are capable of rendering a great deal of their own nuclear waste harmless. They use helium as a coolant at high temperatures and create a closed nuclear fuel cycle, in which only natural uranium is used as a raw material and in which the resulting waste consists of only nuclear fission products.

Von Rooijen's research showed it is possible to obtain a closed nuclear fuel cycle with a GFR and revealed the GFR could use the waste materials of other light water reactors, thus serving as an incinerator of nuclear waste.