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\nZeno and Orano teams standing on the securely stored nuclear waste at the la Hague site (Image: Orano)<\/p>\n
Nuclear battery developer Zeno Power is to make a “multi-million dollar” investment to get priority access to americium-241 supplies from Orano’s la Hague recycling site in France.
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US-based Zeno Power is currently developing americium-241-fuelled radioisotope power systems for the US space agency NASA to power lunar rovers, landers and potential infrastructure on the Moon.<\/p>\n
In the past, power systems have utilised plutonium-238 as a fuel source, but its limited supply and increasing demand has led to the search for alternatives. Americium-241 has a half-life of more than 430 years, meaning power systems can last for decades and it is produced naturally through the decay of other isotopes found in used nuclear fuel.<\/p>\n
The two companies have been working together since 2022 to explore the potential production of americium-241 and its feasibility.<\/p>\n
\nZeno and Orano teams standing on the securely stored nuclear waste at the la Hague site (Image: Orano)<\/p>\n
Jean-Luc Palayer, CEO of Orano USA, said: “Americium-241 represents a powerful opportunity to demonstrate the real-world value of used nuclear fuel recycling. Our collaboration with Zeno shows how industrial-scale recovery of valuable isotopes can create entirely new markets and enable innovative ideas to become reality. As we like to say: It\u2019s only waste if you waste it.”<\/p>\n
Harsh S Desai, CCO at Zeno Power, said: “With Orano’s world-class operational recycling expertise, we can now harness americium-241 (Am-241) as a new fuel source for the burgeoning demand for nuclear power. We are proud to partner with Orano to establish a commercial supply chain for Am-241, transforming recycled material into reliable power for missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nuclear battery developer Zeno Power is to make a “multi-million dollar” investment to get priority access to americium-241…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459579,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3843],"tags":[728,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-459578","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115285801283569264","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}