UK plans for nuclear batteries from civilian waste

BBC : The UK’s National Nuclear Laboratory is currently running a pilot program for extracting americium-241 from the nuclear waste stored at the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing site in Seascale. The proposed project for creating nuclear-powered batteries for European Space Agency spacecraft would also create some 50 jobs and several million pounds in export revenue. Plutonium-238, which is currently the isotope used in nuclear batteries, is only available from military reactors owned by the US and Russia, and the supply is expected to run out by 2018. The program at Sellafield would be the first to use an alternative nuclear isotope for battery creation. If the ESA decides to provide funding in November, Tim Tinsley, NNL’s program manager, believes the plant would reach full production by 2020.