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Accelerator Applications
The division was organized to promote the advancement of knowledge of the use of particle accelerator technologies for nuclear and other applications. It focuses on production of neutrons and other particles, utilization of these particles for scientific or industrial purposes, such as the production or destruction of radionuclides significant to energy, medicine, defense or other endeavors, as well as imaging and diagnostics.
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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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The busyness of the nuclear fuel supply chain
Ken Petersenpresident@ans.org
With all that is happening in the industry these days, the nuclear fuel supply chain is still a hot topic. The Russian assault in Ukraine continues to upend the “where” and “how” of attaining nuclear fuel—and it has also motivated U.S. legislators to act.
Two years into the Russian war with Ukraine, things are different. The Inflation Reduction Act was passed in 2022, authorizing $700 million in funding to support production of high-assay low-enriched uranium in the United States. Meanwhile, the Department of Energy this January issued a $500 million request for proposals to stimulate new HALEU production. The Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2024 includes $2.7 billion in funding for new uranium enrichment production. This funding was diverted from the Civil Nuclear Credits program and will only be released if there is a ban on importing Russian uranium into the United States—which could happen by the time this column is published, as legislation that bans Russian uranium has passed the House as of this writing and is headed for the Senate. Also being considered is legislation that would sanction Russian uranium. Alternatively, the Biden-Harris administration may choose to ban Russian uranium without legislation in order to obtain access to the $2.7 billion in funding.
Temitope A. Taiwo, Taek K. Kim, Roald A. Wigeland
Nuclear Technology | Volume 194 | Number 2 | May 2016 | Pages 127-135
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NT15-119
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
As part of a nuclear fuel cycle evaluation and screening (E&S) study, widely ranging thorium fuel cycle options were evaluated, and their performance characteristics and challenges to implementation were compared to those of other nuclear fuel cycle options based on criteria specified by the Nuclear Energy Office of the U.S. Department of Energy. The evaluated nuclear fuel cycles included the once-through, limited, and continuous recycle options using critical or externally driven nuclear energy systems. The E&S study found that the continuous recycle of 233U/Th in fuel cycles using either thermal or fast reactors is an attractive promising fuel cycle option with high effective fuel resource utilization and low waste generation, but they did not perform quite as well as the continuous recycle of Pu/U using a fast critical system, which was identified as one of the most promising fuel cycle options in the E&S study. This is because compared to their uranium counterparts, the thorium-based systems tended to have higher radioactivity in the short term (~100 years postirradiation), because of differences in the fission product yield curves, and in the long term (100 000 years postirradiation), because of the decay of 233U and daughters, and because of higher mass flow rates due to lower discharge burnups. Some of the thorium-based systems also require enriched uranium support, which tends to be detrimental to resource utilization and waste generation metrics. Finally, similar to the need to develop recycle fuel fabrication, fuels separations, and fast reactors for the most promising options using Pu/U recycle, the future thorium-based fuel cycle options with continuous recycle would also require such capabilities; however, their deployment challenges are expected to be greater since past development of such facilities has not reached a comparable level of maturity.