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Fusion Energy
This division promotes the development and timely introduction of fusion energy as a sustainable energy source with favorable economic, environmental, and safety attributes. The division cooperates with other organizations on common issues of multidisciplinary fusion science and technology, conducts professional meetings, and disseminates technical information in support of these goals. Members focus on the assessment and resolution of critical developmental issues for practical fusion energy applications.
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2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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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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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.
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.
