ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Division Spotlight
Robotics & Remote Systems
The Mission of the Robotics and Remote Systems Division is to promote the development and application of immersive simulation, robotics, and remote systems for hazardous environments for the purpose of reducing hazardous exposure to individuals, reducing environmental hazards and reducing the cost of performing work.
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
May 2024
Jan 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2024
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
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.
Wilson Cowherd, John Stillman, John Gahl, Leslie Foyto, Erik Wilson
Nuclear Technology | Volume 207 | Number 2 | February 2021 | Pages 167-181
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2020.1763720
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new type of low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel based on an alloy of uranium and molybdenum is expected to allow the conversion of U.S. domestic high-performance research and test reactors requiring high density fuel from highly enriched uranium (HEU) to LEU. The University of Missouri Research Reactor (MURR®) has undergone design and performance calculations for conversion to this LEU fuel. Presented in this paper is the analysis of a crucial step in the conversion process: the sequence of MURR transition cores from all fresh to equilibrium burnup LEU operations. During the initial conversion from HEU to LEU fuel, MURR will operate atypically due to the lack of burned LEU elements. Given the constraints of MURR operation and experiments, a proposed transition scheme minimizes the time MURR operates atypically compared to the prototypic cycles currently run with HEU fuel and moves quickly to the same sort of equilibrium cycles for the LEU fuel.