Nuclear-waste monitoring gets close to the source

From New Orleans, at a meeting of the American Chemical Society

Some forms of nuclear radiation–such as the beta-emission from radioactive technetium-99–are particularly difficult to detect underground, partly because the radiation doesn’t travel very far. A new prototype instrument may make this and other elements easier to trace in groundwater.

Technitium-99 is produced during nuclear-reactor operation and nuclear-weapons production.