The NEWTON program will support the research and development of technologies that enable the transmutation of used nuclear fuel to reduce the impact of storage in permanent disposal facilities. This program seeks to fund the development of novel technologies that increase the overall performance of particle generation systems by reducing beam trip magnitude and duration. Additional technologies will maximize transmutation rates and streamline the removal of the transmuted material through the development of dedicated transmutation targets. Transmutation is a process in which an isotope is converted to another isotope or element through a nuclear reaction. It is one possible strategy for the transformation of nuclear-fission-derived isotopes that are problematic for long-term waste disposal. NEWTON seeks 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 used nuclear fuel to be disposed of in a geological repository.

The NEWTON program comprises three technical categories to support its objectives:

• Category A technologies include related to the generation and acceleration of particle beams that can initiate transmutation reactions;
• Category B technologies include modelling, designing, and fabricating target materials for transmutation of used nuclear fuel, incorporating transmutable materials into a target, and processing transmuted material for waste or isolation; and
• Category C teams will integrate the technologies developed in Categories A and B into a techno-economic analysis and life-cycle assessment of a transmutation facility and maintain a materials and components database for transmutation facilities.

The United States does not currently have an active facility for the permanent disposal of used nuclear fuel derived from the civilian nuclear sector. Unprocessed used nuclear fuel reaches the radiotoxicity of natural uranium ore after approximately 100,000 years of cooling. Partitioning and recycling of uranium, plutonium, and minor actinide content of used nuclear fuel can dramatically reduce this number to around 300 years. ARPA-E seeks to make a truly transformative decrease to this time frame to enable the transmutation of the entirety of the U.S. commercial used nuclear fuel stockpile within 30 years. This shifts the issue of used nuclear fuel disposal from an intergenerational issue to an intragenerational one.

The research and development of technologies developed in NEWTON will enable the following benefits.