LONDON, March 22 (Reuters) - France's Areva, the world's largest maker of nuclear reactors, is developing a new type of reactor capable of destroying atomic waste, the Times reported in its Monday edition.
As concerns rise over dwindling oil supplies and the environmental hazards of global warming, nuclear energy, which produces almost no carbon dioxide, has come back into vogue.
Chief Executive Anne Lauvergeon told the paper the state-owned group was working on a new technology to destroy actinides, the highly radioactive waste products of nuclear fission inside a reactor.
'In terms of public acceptance, the remaining issue is the waste. In the future we will be able to destroy the actinides by making them disappear in a special reactor,' Lauvergeon told the Times.
'We can do it already in a laboratory. With research and development, we will address this issue,' she said.
(Reporting by Caroline Copley; Editing by Lincoln Feast) Keywords: AREVA NUCLEAR/ (caroline.copley@thomsonreuters.com; +44 20 7542 7717) COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Reuters 2010. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters.
As concerns rise over dwindling oil supplies and the environmental hazards of global warming, nuclear energy, which produces almost no carbon dioxide, has come back into vogue.
Chief Executive Anne Lauvergeon told the paper the state-owned group was working on a new technology to destroy actinides, the highly radioactive waste products of nuclear fission inside a reactor.
'In terms of public acceptance, the remaining issue is the waste. In the future we will be able to destroy the actinides by making them disappear in a special reactor,' Lauvergeon told the Times.
'We can do it already in a laboratory. With research and development, we will address this issue,' she said.
(Reporting by Caroline Copley; Editing by Lincoln Feast) Keywords: AREVA NUCLEAR/ (caroline.copley@thomsonreuters.com; +44 20 7542 7717) COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Reuters 2010. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters.
