ARPA-E Announces NEWTON Funding Opportunity
ARPA-E Announces NEWTON Funding Opportunity
The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) has announced $40 million in funding to develop cutting-edge technologies to enable the transmutation of used nuclear fuel (UNF) into less radioactive substances. A commercially-viable transmutation facility could potentially recover minor actinides and intermediate-lived/long-lived fission products from UNF that could in turn become valuable products as medical/industrial isotopes.
The Nuclear Energy Waste Transmutation Optimized Now (NEWTON) program seeks to fund the development of technologies that enable transmutation, the process in which an isotope is converted to a different isotope or element through a nuclear reaction. NEWTON aims to enable the economic viability of transmutation at a scale that will significantly reduce the mass, volume, activity, and effective half-life of the existing stockpile of commercial UNF to be disposed of in a geological repository.
Further information on the Nuclear Energy Waste Transmutation Optimized Now program, including frequently asked questions and application forms, is available on the NEWTON website. The concept paper submission deadline is Friday, August 16, 2024, 9:30 am ET.
