The new energy technology Transmutex seeks to commercialize emerged from research by Nobel laureate Prof. Carlo Rubbia, at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research). The technology uses a particle accelerator (a cyclotron) to drive a nuclear transmutation reactor. The abundant metal thorium is transmuted into shorter-lived radioactive material during the process. The subcritical reactor design is intrinsically safe: The process stops when the particle accelerator as an external source of neutrons is stopped. Hence, a nuclear chain reaction like the Chernobyl accident is not possible. All system elements have already been developed, built, and experimentally validated. Transmutex’s next goal is to build a demonstration plant that incorporates all these elements.

You have a relatively diverse professional background. How did this lead to joining Transmutex?

When I did my Master’s in History, I was the only one with a degree in electrical engineering. I studied government interventions in industrial policy, comparing Japan and France. This was interesting and is also helpful today. Energy is a strategic industry in which governments are heavily involved. The initial idea of combining a particle accelerator with a nuclear plant came from Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia, the Director of CERN then. I learned by chance of this experiment at CERN that reduced the half-life of nuclear waste and was fascinated. Because for me, the idea of burying waste that is toxic for the next 300’000 years, for untold generations, was always repulsive. I met people at the helm of the International Thorium Energy Committee, got involved with the association, and joined many debates. At one point, we decided to start the company Transmutex.

Using thorium instead of uranium as nuclear fuel is not a new idea. Why was it abandoned in the past?

The Shippingport reactor in the US ran on thorium from 1977 on for five years. This could have been the start of the thorium era, which has clear advantages over uranium. The Earth’s crust contains around four times as much thorium as uranium. Thorium resources are more than 6 million tons, enough to power the planet for thousands of years. However, there was already an established uranium supply chain, which also produces plutonium for nuclear bombs, and there was no economic reason to create a thorium supply chain.

And why does Transmutex want to change that now?

Our initial motivation remains central: to reduce the stockpile of long-lived nuclear waste, which will exceed 9000 tons by 2060. And the time is now because people are generally more open about nuclear and an alternative fuel cycle based on thorium. Atomic energy will become acceptable if we eliminate the waste management and proliferation issues. The need for carbon-free, stable energy has become existential for humanity.

So, how does this alternative fuel cycle work?

Transmutex proposes a subcritical reactor layout. This means it uses neutrons from an outside source, a particle accelerator, to sustain the reaction. The reactor transmutes thorium into uranium-233, which is the nuclear fuel. This reaction does not produce plutonium or other long-lived radioactive waste. Additionally, transmuting existing plutonium stockpiles or long-lived nuclear waste is possible, reducing the storage time from hundreds of thousands of years to mere hundreds.

This sounds great, but why not wait until nuclear fusion is ready?

I would love fusion technology to become viable with significant energy gains, but I feel this will not happen anytime soon. A lot of money is thrown at the problem, and many smart people are working on it, but that alone is not enough to solve it quickly. Think about how President Nixon launched the “war” on cancer in 1972. People also thought that if the brightest scientists tackled the problem, it would be solved in a few years. But here we are, 50 years later, and the war hasn’t been won. Fusion works in the Sun because of the huge pressure from gravity, but we have different parameters here on Earth. Even if we would have fusion soon, which I doubt, we still have the problem of nuclear waste to deal with. So, even in this scenario, we would have a business without any real competition for the next 200 years.

But even a reactor with Transmutex’ technology is still at least ten years away, which is quite a long time.

We are indeed working on cutting-edge technology in nuclear. But you should not forget that all the elements needed for our system have already been demonstrated as standalone. This is why you need a private company to combine these elements in one single vision. We work with research institutes, and government agencies and bring people together to provide a solution in the foreseeable future, not one in 100 years.

Nuclear power is experiencing a renaissance, but there are still many skeptics. People are concerned with safety and for a reason.

Transmutex technology is based on a subcritical reactor. There is no self-sustaining chain reaction like in other nuclear reactors. If something happens, say, an earthquake and the accelerator stops working, the reactor stops in two milliseconds. This is not just theory, it was already demonstrated in an experiment in 2008.

The second aspect of nuclear that people are wary of is proliferation, the spread of fissionable material for nuclear weapons.

We developed our fuel cycle together with Argonne National Lab in the US. It makes separating plutonium and other elements incredibly difficult, technically complex, and costly. So, our fuel cycle is highly resistant to proliferation.

The third critical aspect of nuclear energy is waste that is hazardous for tens of thousands of years.

Here, Transmutex proposes a solution by reducing the time nuclear waste is hazardous. The problem of keeping nuclear waste, more specifically, plutonium, safe for 300.000 years is water because plutonium is soluble in water. You don’t want it to interact with water; we want to keep our groundwater free of radioactive elements. Our concern is to reduce the lifespan of the radioactivity of the waste. Our process considerably reduces the amount of long-lived waste.

How difficult is your job of convincing people of this new method?

The nuclear renaissance certainly made many people less reluctant to talk to us. However, especially for investors, nuclear power still seems to be hard to understand. It looks like a complicated field, like space was some years ago. However, once Elon Musk showed that there was money to be made in space, everyone rushed to invest in the topic. Still, compared to, say, a software company, we operate on different timelines. But it’s important to understand that while the cashflows from operating an actual plant might still be quite a few years away, the value creation and the return on investment for investors will happen earlier. Some clever investors have understood that and see the urgency of investing in a climate-friendly, stable energy supply.

Transmutex is based in Vernier, Switzerland. How open are the Swiss to this topic?

As a reaction to the popular initiative “Stop the Blackout”, the Federal Council wants to amend the law so that new nuclear plants can once again be approved. But still, Switzerland is behind the curve compared to Sweden or Holland. Even the United Arab Emirates, which has the same population as Switzerland but more than double the hours of sunshine annually compared to Zurich and infinitely more free space, isn’t solely relying on solar power. They have four nuclear reactors in operation and plan to build four more. This should make us think.

Who is interested in building a Transmutex reactor, and when will that be?

The question about the timeline is about political will and, hence, money. I cannot disclose with whom we are talking but we have a letter of intent from a government-level entity and are in exploratory discussions with three other countries.

In Europe?

Also in Europe. But, you know, the problem with Europe is that people think everything is magic. Water just flows out of the faucet. Toasting your bread in the morning is just flicking on a switch. We have forgotten where water, energy, all these things we take for granted come from. It’s not magic. We must invest in technology to ensure the convenience we are used to and maintain and grow our civilization. If our energy supply is threatened, industry and jobs are also threatened.

In around five years or less, we will have a scaled-down demonstrator. We can manage this at a cost far less than the first-of-a-kind reactor, which will take longer. Once we have the demonstrator plant and can show that we reduce the problem of long-lived nuclear waste, this will unleash enormous interest and create immense value for our investors.