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Division Spotlight
Fuel Cycle & Waste Management
Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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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Nuclear Science and Engineering
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Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Bipartisan Fusion Energy Act pushes for regulatory clarity
Sen. Alex Padilla (D., Calif.) introduced the Fusion Energy Act (S. 4151) last month with a bipartisan group of cosponsors—John Cornyn (R., Texas), Cory Booker (D., N.J.), Todd Young (R., Ind.), and Patty Murray (D., Wash.). The legislation would codify the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s regulatory authority over commercial fusion energy systems to streamline the creation of clear federal regulations that will support the development of commercial fusion power plants—and would require a report within one year on a study of risk- and performance-based, design-specific licensing frameworks for “mass-manufactured fusion machines.
“Congress must do everything in its power to ensure continued U.S. leadership in developing commercial fusion energy facilities,” said Padilla as he introduced the bill. “The Fusion Energy Act would provide regulatory certainty for investors as the NRC develops and streamlines frameworks for such facilities.”
Edward A. Hoffman, Weston M. Stacey
Nuclear Technology | Volume 144 | Number 1 | October 2003 | Pages 83-106
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management and Disposal | doi.org/10.13182/NT03-A3431
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Fuel cycle analyses are performed to evaluate the impacts of further transmutation of spent nuclear fuel on high-level and low-level waste mass flows into repositories, on the composition and toxicity of the high-level waste, on the capacity of high-level waste repositories, and on the proliferation resistance of the high-level waste. Storage intact of light water reactor (LWR) spent nuclear fuel, a single recycle in a LWR of the plutonium as mixed-oxide fuel, and the repeated recycle of the transuranics in critical and subcritical fast reactors are compared with the focus on the waste management performance of these systems. Other considerations such as cost and technological challenges were beyond the scope of this study. The overall conclusion of the studies is that repeated recycling of the transuranics from spent nuclear fuel would significantly increase the capacity of high-level waste repositories per unit of nuclear energy produced, significantly increase the nuclear energy production per unit mass of uranium ore mined, significantly reduce the radiotoxicity of the waste streams per unit of nuclear energy produced, and significantly enhance the proliferation resistance of the material stored in high-level waste repositories.