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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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Deep Space: The new frontier of radiation controls
In commercial nuclear power, there has always been a deliberate tension between the regulator and the utility owner. The regulator fundamentally exists to protect the worker, and the utility, to make a profit. It is a win-win balance.
From the U.S. nuclear industry has emerged a brilliantly successful occupational nuclear safety record—largely the result of an ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) process that has driven exposure rates down to what only a decade ago would have been considered unthinkable. In the U.S. nuclear industry, the system has accomplished an excellent, nearly seamless process that succeeds to the benefit of both employee and utility owner.
Lee G. Glascoe, Thomas A. Buscheck, James Gansemer, Yunwei Sun, Kenrick Lee
Nuclear Technology | Volume 148 | Number 2 | November 2004 | Pages 125-137
Technical Paper | High-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal | doi.org/10.13182/NT04-A3553
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The MultiScale ThermoHydrologic Model (MSTHM) is used to predict thermal-hydrologic conditions in emplacement drifts and the adjoining host rock throughout a proposed nuclear waste repository. This modeling effort simulates a lower-temperature operation mode with a different panel loading than the repository currently being considered for the Yucca Mountain license application. Simulations address the influence of repository-scale thermal-conductivity heterogeneity and the influence of preclosure operational factors on thermal-loading conditions. MSTHM can accommodate a complex repository layout, a development that, along with other improvements, enables more rigorous analyses of preclosure operational factors. Differences in MSTHM output occurring with these new capabilities are noted for a new sequential waste-package-loading technique compared with a standard simultaneous-loading technique. Alternative approaches to modeling repository-scale thermal-conductivity heterogeneity in the host-rock units are investigated, and a study incorporating geostatistically varied host-rock thermal conductivity is discussed.
