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2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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PR: American Nuclear Society welcomes Senate confirmation of Ted Garrish as the DOE’s nuclear energy secretary
Washington, D.C. — The American Nuclear Society (ANS) applauds the U.S. Senate's confirmation of Theodore “Ted” Garrish as Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
“On behalf of over 11,000 professionals in the fields of nuclear science and technology, the American Nuclear Society congratulates Mr. Garrish on being confirmed by the Senate to once again lead the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy,” said ANS President H.M. "Hash" Hashemian.
Masatoshi Yamasaki, Hironobu Unesaki, Akio Yamamoto, Toshikazu Takeda, Masaaki Mori
Nuclear Technology | Volume 180 | Number 1 | October 2012 | Pages 18-27
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT12-A14516
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The use of highly-enriched fuels is an effective method for reducing the number of spent fuel assemblies and improving fuel cycle economics, e.g., with >5 wt% 235U. However, from a criticality safety point of view, such high enrichment levels require a significant investment for the considerable modification of most facilities and equipment. Erbia-credit super-high-burnup fuel offers an effective solution that can solve the problem: Small amounts of erbia added to the entire amount of UO2 powder can reduce the reactivity level to less than that observed at a 5 wt% enrichment level, thus eliminating the need for the modifications mentioned above. A series of criticality safety analyses has been performed to determine the minimum and sufficient content of erbia that can guarantee a suitable erbia credit. As a noteworthy result, the erbia content required was determined for corresponding values of uranium enrichment in a range >5 wt%, as indicated in our ECOS (Erbia COntent for Sub-criticality judgment) diagram. This paper outlines a series of criticality safety analyses and explains how the minimum erbia content can be determined to ensure subcriticality for a >5 wt% enrichment fuel to ensure that the fuel obtained is equivalent to that whose enrichment is <5 wt%.