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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!
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U.K., Japan to extend decommissioning partnership
The U.K.’s Sellafield Ltd. and Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power Company have pledge to continue to work together for up to an additional 10 years, extending a cooperative agreement begun in 2014 following the 2011 tsunami that resulted in the irreparable damage of TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi plant.
William E. Kastenberg, Per F. Peterson, Joonhong Ahn, J. Burch, G. Casher, Paul L. Chambré, Ehud Greenspan, Donald R. Olander, Jasmina L. Vujic, B. Bessinger, Neville G. W. Cook, Fiona M. Doyle, L. Brun Hilbert, Jr.
Nuclear Technology | Volume 115 | Number 3 | September 1996 | Pages 298-310
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT96-2
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Potential routes to autocatalytic criticality in geologic repositories are systematically assessed. If highly enriched uranium (HEU) or 239Pu are transported and deposited in concentrations similar to natural uranium ore, in principle, criticality can occur. For some hypothesized critical configurations, removal of a small fraction of pore water provides a positive feedback mechanism that can lead to supercriticality. Rock heating and homogenization for these configurations can also significantly increase reactivity. At Yucca Mountain, it is highly unlikely that these configurations can occur; plutonium transport would occur primarily as colloids and deposit over short distances. HEU solute can move large distances in the Yucca Mountain setting; its ability to precipitate into critical configurations is unlikely because of a lack of active reducing agents. Appropriate engineering of the waste form and the repository can reduce any remaining probability of criticality.