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Conference Spotlight
2026 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!
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Latest News
What’s the most difficult question you’ve been asked as a maintenance instructor?
Blye Widmar
"Where are the prints?!"
This was the final question in an onslaught of verbal feedback, comments, and critiques I received from my students back in 2019. I had two years of instructor experience and was teaching a class that had been meticulously rehearsed in preparation for an accreditation visit. I knew the training material well and transferred that knowledge effectively enough for all the students to pass the class. As we wrapped up, I asked the students how they felt about my first big system-level class, and they did not hold back.
“Why was the exam from memory when we don’t work from memory in the plant?” “Why didn’t we refer to the vendor documents?” “Why didn’t we practice more on the mock-up?” And so on.
Yigal Ronen, Menashe Aboudy, Dror Regev, Erez Gilad
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 175 | Number 2 | October 2013 | Pages 149-156
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE12-84
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
We show that it is possible to denature the plutonium produced in pebble bed modular reactors by doping the nuclear fuel with either 3050 ppm of 237Np or ~2100 ppm of isotopic composition of Am. A correct choice of these isotope concentrations yields denatured plutonium with isotopic ratio 238Pu/Pu 6%, for the entire fuel burnup cycle. The penalty for introducing these isotopes into the nuclear fuel is a subsequent shortening of the fuel burnup cycle, with respect to a nondoped reference fuel cycle, by ~40 and 20 full-power days, respectively, which correspond to 4.1 and 2.0 GW(d)/ton reduction in fuel discharge burnup.
