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.
Division Spotlight
Accelerator Applications
The division was organized to promote the advancement of knowledge of the use of particle accelerator technologies for nuclear and other applications. It focuses on production of neutrons and other particles, utilization of these particles for scientific or industrial purposes, such as the production or destruction of radionuclides significant to energy, medicine, defense or other endeavors, as well as imaging and diagnostics.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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
Apr 2024
Jan 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
May 2024
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Glass strategy: Hanford’s enhanced waste glass program
The mission of the Department of Energy’s Office of River Protection (ORP) is to complete the safe cleanup of waste resulting from decades of nuclear weapons development. One of the most technologically challenging responsibilities is the safe disposition of approximately 56 million gallons of radioactive waste historically stored in 177 tanks at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
ORP has a clear incentive to reduce the overall mission duration and cost. One pathway is to develop and deploy innovative technical solutions that can advance baseline flow sheets toward higher efficiency operations while reducing identified risks without compromising safety. Vitrification is the baseline process that will convert both high-level and low-level radioactive waste at Hanford into a stable glass waste form for long-term storage and disposal.
Although vitrification is a mature technology, there are key areas where technology can further reduce operational risks, advance baseline processes to maximize waste throughput, and provide the underpinning to enhance operational flexibility; all steps in reducing mission duration and cost.
Marius Stein, Massimo Morichi
Nuclear Technology | Volume 179 | Number 1 | July 2012 | Pages 150-155
Technical Paper | Special Issue on Safeguards / Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT12-A14076
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Renewed interest in nuclear energy as a sustainable, carbon emission-free component of a nation's energy portfolio has prompted the international nonproliferation community to evaluate how the expanded use of nuclear power can be effectively and efficiently safeguarded. One concept, named safeguards by design, aims at the efficient use of limited safeguards resources. It is a concept that was introduced in the mid-1990s and is currently under renewed review by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The IAEA would work with installation designers to facilitate the implementation of safeguards throughout the design and construction phases. The international nonproliferation community has picked up the discussion, and the nuclear industry is ready to contribute by evaluating whether a broader, synergetic engineering approach of a holistic design concept can be developed that would consider provisions for safety and security of new nuclear facilities.This paper outlines the background of safeguards by design and describes how the comprehensive concept of safety, security, and safeguards by design was developed. The expected synergies lying in a multiuser approach to instrumentation are illustrated with a sample infrastructure with distributed sensor networks employing separated data authentication and encryption schemes, and the potential advantages for day-to-day operation of installations are highlighted. An overview is given of the expected challenges, ranging from sensitivity concerns on the operator side to authentication of data to allow for independent evaluation by safeguards authorities. Finally, we sketch an opinion on the best way for a project, from its very beginning, to technically interact with the IAEA and how the formal process at the state level could accommodate this concept.