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Nuclear Criticality Safety
NCSD provides communication among nuclear criticality safety professionals through the development of standards, the evolution of training methods and materials, the presentation of technical data and procedures, and the creation of specialty publications. In these ways, the division furthers the exchange of technical information on nuclear criticality safety with the ultimate goal of promoting the safe handling of fissionable materials outside reactors.
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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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College students help develop waste-measuring device at Hanford
A partnership between Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) and Washington State University has resulted in the development of a device to measure radioactive and chemical tank waste at the Hanford Site. WRPS is the contractor at Hanford for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management.
Gordon M. Petersen, Steven E. Skutnik, James Ostrowski, Robert A. Joseph, III
Nuclear Technology | Volume 200 | Number 3 | December 2017 | Pages 208-224
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2017.1377509
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A key challenge in fulfilling the U.S. federal government’s obligations under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act is in the transition of used nuclear fuel (UNF) storage away from at-reactor storage and to a consolidated interim storage facility (CISF). The default strategy (Standard Contract) for the U.S. Department of Energy is to use the oldest fuel first (OFF) allocation strategy, which would entail the federal government prioritizing UNF shipments based on fuel discharge date with the option to prioritize shutdown sites. This may not be the most cost-efficient model given the extensive amount of UNF already at reactor sites. Currently, there is no way to preemptively remove fuel from sites that may be close to shutdown or have a higher storage or potential storage cost. As wet storage pools at reactors continue to fill to capacity at operating reactors, the backlog of UNF shipments to the CISF places additional pressure on operators to expand at-reactor dry storage capacity, thus adding to total system costs.
An essential aspect of this transition is in developing appropriate analytical tools to evaluate the effect of factors such as fuel shipment prioritization, logistics, and associated expenses. Examples of this would include evaluating fuel offloading prioritization strategies (OFF versus shutdown sites first), strategies to minimize transfer of UNF to dry storage (i.e., through direct shipment from cooling pools to the CISF), etc.
By applying integer programming techniques, it is possible to make a rigorous analytical determination of a UNF removal allocation strategy that minimizes the total number of shutdown reactor years (SRYs). Our findings indicate that an optimal unloading strategy can result in a threefold reduction in total system SRYs compared with an OFF-based queue, for a systemwide savings of about $8 billion.