Friday, March 30, 2007

Israeli firm Environmental Energy Resources (EER) has announced that it has developed a new technology, plasma gasification melting technology (PGM), to safely dispose of low- and medium-level nuclear waste. Extremely high temperatures are used to turn the waste into a mildly radioactive glass-like substance, which can be used as a building material. The process also releases an extremely hot mixture of gases that can be used to power steam turbines, generating electricity. The company claims that 70% of this electricity is used to drive the PGM process, while 30% is available as exportable energy.