Russia is in the process of upgrading what has been one of the most recent and effective changes in the production of nuclear energy, the Accelerator-Driven Systems (ADS), in which superconducting linear accelerators provide the neutrons needed to sustain the fission process without reaching criticality. The problem with these has been that a large amount of the energy is lost in converting grid power to run the beam and it must operate at very low temperatures of around -271 degrees Celsius.

[The new Russian system](www.atomic-energy.ru/articles/2026/09/11/168463), which is entitled nuclear relativistic technology (NRT), avoids these problems. NRT uses a backward wave accelerator (BWLAP) system architecture, which enables high currents and significantly higher beam energies than traditional ADS systems. This also changes the physics of the process, increasing the contribution of nuclear reactions, which are fewer at lower energies. The system can use nuclear fuel, depleted uranium, or even thorium as feedstock, eliminating uranium enrichment or plutonium separation.