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“Overall, because it’s such a weak β-emitter, it’s not really that radiotoxic,” Smith says.

Korea will still find itself with spent fuel, but with less, and the radioisotopes in waste from the SFR will not remain radiotoxic for nearly as long.

In Chernobyl, for example, the amount of americium-241, a highly radiotoxic isotope if ingested, is actually increasing as its parent nuclide, plutonium, decays.

"Because plutonium is so much more radiotoxic than many of the other radionuclides, even if it's released in relatively small concentrations it can have an impact on the effects," Lyman says.