ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
Latest Magazine Issues
Dec 2025
Jul 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
January 2026
Nuclear Technology
December 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
November 2025
Latest News
AI at work: Southern Nuclear’s adoption of Copilot agents drives fleet forward
Southern Nuclear is leading the charge in artificial intelligence integration, with employee-developed applications driving efficiencies in maintenance, operations, safety, and performance.
The tools span all roles within the company, with thousands of documented uses throughout the fleet, including improved maintenance efficiency, risk awareness in maintenance activities, and better-informed decision-making. The data-intensive process of preparing for and executing maintenance operations is streamlined by leveraging AI to put the right information at the fingertips for maintenance leaders, planners, schedulers, engineers, and technicians.
Per F. Peterson, Edward Blandford, Christhian Galvez
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 56 | Number 2 | August 2009 | Pages 641-646
Laser Fusion-Fission Hybrid | Eighteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (Part 2) | doi.org/10.13182/FST56-641
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper reviews fission safety design principles and approaches for coupling inertial confinement fusion (ICF) to a subcritical fission blanket, in Laser ICF Fission Energy (LIFE) power plants. LIFE power plants use fuel derived from either spent fuel from fission reactors, or from natural uranium or thorium. By using fusion neutrons, LIFE plants can fission a large fraction of the heavy metal in the fuel, and thus eliminate any need for enrichment of uranium or reprocessing of the fission fuel used in the LIFE plants. This generates security and economic benefits. This paper reviews fission design, safety and licensing issues that are relevant to LIFE power plants.