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2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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Latest News
The journey of the U.S. fuel cycle
Craig Piercycpiercy@ans.org
While most big journeys begin with a clear objective, they rarely start with an exact knowledge of the route. When commissioning the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1803, President Thomas Jefferson didn’t provide specific “turn right at the big mountain” directions to the Corps of Discovery. He gave goal-oriented instructions: explore the Missouri River, find its source, search for a transcontinental water route to the Pacific, and build scientific and cultural knowledge along the way.
Jefferson left it up to Lewis and Clark to turn his broad, geopolitically motivated guidance into gritty reality.
Similarly, U.S. nuclear policy has begun a journey toward closing the U.S. nuclear fuel cycle. There is a clear signal of support for recycling from the Trump administration, along with growing bipartisan excitement in Congress. Yet the precise path remains unclear.
Mikio Enoeda et al.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 47 | Number 4 | May 2005 | Pages 1060-1067
Technical Paper | Fusion Energy - First Wall, Blanket, and Shield | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A827
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI) has been performing blanket development based on the long-term research program of fusion blankets in Japan, which was approved by the Fusion Council of Japan in 1999. The blanket development consists of out-pile R&D, In-pile R&D, TBM Neutronics and TPR Tests and Tritium Recovery System R&D. Based on the achievements of element technology development, the R&D program is now stepping to the engineering testing phase, in which scalable mockup tests will be performed for obtaining engineering data unique to the specific structure of the components, with the objective to define the fabrication specification of test blanket modules for ITER. This paper presents the major achievements of the element technology development of solid breeder blanket in JAERI.
