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Division Spotlight
Operations & Power
Members focus on the dissemination of knowledge and information in the area of power reactors with particular application to the production of electric power and process heat. The division sponsors meetings on the coverage of applied nuclear science and engineering as related to power plants, non-power reactors, and other nuclear facilities. It encourages and assists with the dissemination of knowledge pertinent to the safe and efficient operation of nuclear facilities through professional staff development, information exchange, and supporting the generation of viable solutions to current issues.
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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Latest News
G7 pledges support for nuclear at Italy meeting
The Group of Seven (G7) recommitted its support for nuclear energy in the countries that opt to use it at a Ministerial Meeting on Climate in Italy last month.
In a statement following the April meeting, the group committed to support multilateral efforts to strengthen the resilience of nuclear supply chains, referencing the goal set by 25 countries during last year’s COP28 climate conference in Dubai to triple global nuclear generating capacity by 2050.
Hyung-Kook Joo, Jae-Man Noh, Jae-Woon Yoo, Jin-Young Cho, Sang-Yoon Park, Moon-Hee Chang
Nuclear Technology | Volume 147 | Number 1 | July 2004 | Pages 37-52
Technical Paper | Thoria-Urania NERI | doi.org/10.13182/NT03-30
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Since the thorium-based fuel has many incentives including the reduction of plutonium generation and long-lived radiotoxic isotope production, the research on the use of thorium as a nuclear fuel for nuclear power reactors has been performed and will last for a long time. Focus is on the fuel economics of the thorium-based cycle for light water reactors (LWRs). Analyses show that the neutronic behavior of a mixed thorium and uranium dioxide (Th + U)O2 core in a pressurized water reactor (PWR) will not be significantly different from that of a UO2 core. This implies that homogeneous (Th + U)O2 fuel can be used in PWRs instead of the current UO2 fuel without any significant mechanical modification of the fuel design and without any change in the nuclear design limits. However, homogeneous (Th + U)O2 has not shown any economic advantage over UO2 fuel when current fuel management strategies are used. Thus, alternative applications of homogeneous (Th + U)O2 fuel in LWRs have been investigated to enhance the economics of the thorium fuel cycle. Specifically, thorium-uranium fuel with a 235U enrichment significantly <19.5 wt%, mixed cores of both duplex (Th + U)O2 and UO2 fuel assemblies, and use of homogeneous thorium-uranium fuel in small-to-medium PWRs with a 5-yr cycle length have been investigated. The proposed alternatives result in far better fuel economics than the homogeneous thorium-uranium fuel cycle. However, the proposed alternatives do not show the economic merit of thorium-based fuel options for existing LWRs as compared to the UO2 fuel option. However, the inclusion of spent-fuel disposal costs in the fuel cost estimate makes (Th + U)O2 fuel competitive with UO2 fuel. In the case of a spent-fuel disposal cost higher than 700 US$/kg HM, the long-lived core with better economic potential than the UO2-fueled core may be realized with the homogeneous (Th + U)O2 fuel.