byproduct could be competitive. Precious metals produced via irradiation Ruthenium In addition to being a fission product of uranium, as described above, another way to produce ruthenium is to start with molybdenum, which has a price averaging between $10 and $20/kg, in contrast with ruthenium's $1860/kg. The isotope 100Mo, which has an abundance of 9.6% in natural molybdenum, can be transmuted to 101Mo by slow neutron irradiation. 101Mo and its daughter product, 101Tc, both have beta-decay half-lives of roughly 14 minutes. The end product is stable 101Ru. Alternately, it can be produced by the neutron inactivation of 99Tc; the resulting 100Tc has a half-life of 16 seconds and decays to the stable 100Ru. Given that Technetium-99 is among the most problematic long-lived fission products and - unlike its nuclear isomer - has no known applications, production of Ruthenium from nuclear waste derived Technetium appears particularly promising. However, if Ruthenium that can be used without having to wait for nuclear decays to occur is desired, a particularly isotopically and chemically pure Technetium-99 target is needed. has important medical applications and the production of waste from it is unavoidable. If Ruthenium is produced from such a source, a relatively pure feedstock can be guaranteed and it might be possible to generate economic benefit from both the waste disposal of and the subsequent sale of Ruthenium. Rhodium In addition to being a fission product of uranium, as described above, another way to produce rhodium is to start with ruthenium, which has a price of $1860/kg, which is much lower than rhodium's $765,188/kg. The isotope 102Ru, which forms 31.6% of natural ruthenium, can be transmuted to 103Ru by slow neutron irradiation. 103Ru then decays to 103Rh via beta decay, with a half-life of 39.26 days. The isotopes 98Ru through 101Ru, which together form 44.2% of natural ruthenium, could also be transmuted into 102Ru, and subsequently to 103Ru and then 103Rh, through multiple neutron captures in a nuclear reactor. As Ruthenium can also be produced from lower value feedstocks such as Technetium or Molybdenum (as described above) it might be possible to produce very high value Rhodium via successive neutron capture (and beta decays) from low value molybdenum or even "waste" Technetium. Rhenium The cost of rhenium as of January 2010 was $6,250/kg; by contrast, tungsten is very cheap, with a price of under $30/kg as of July 2010. The isotopes 184W and 186W together