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
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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
Sep 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
October 2025
Nuclear Technology
September 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
ANS continues to expand its certificate offerings
It’s almost been a full year since the American Nuclear Society held its inaugural section of Nuclear 101, a comprehensive certificate course on the basics of the nuclear field. Offered at the 2024 ANS Winter Conference and Expo, that first sold-out course marked a massive milestone in the Society’s expanding work in professional development and certification.
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.
