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Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
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Integrating Waste Management for Advanced Reactors: The Universal Canister System and Project UPWARDS
When the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy launched the Optimizing Nuclear Waste and Advanced Reactor Disposal Systems (ONWARDS) program in 2022, it posed a challenge that the nuclear industry had never seriously confronted before: how to design waste management solutions that anticipate the coming shift to advanced reactors and not merely retrofit existing systems built for an older generation of technology. The program’s objectives were ambitious—reduce disposal footprint, enable scalable pathways for unfamiliar waste streams, and build the technical foundations for future disposal—yet also tightly grounded in the realities of emerging nuclear fuel cycles. For the nuclear community, this was a timely call. Advanced reactors were accelerating toward deployment, but the waste management systems needed to support them had not kept pace.
Technical Session|Panel|Fuel Management
Tuesday, July 22, 2025|10:00AM–12:05PM EDT|Bay Room
Session Chair:
John C. Hannah
Session Organizer:
Alternate Chair:
Baxter Durham
The next few years bring the exciting prospect of new reactor designs achieving commercial operation with a diversity of technology and quantity that has not been seen for decades. With this new opportunity comes an old challenge - initial core design. These designs tend to be distinct from standard reloads in their fuel composition, which can lead to cycle-specific safety analysis and core management constraints. The fuel in initial cores must also support a range of new reactor commissioning and startup testing that can add requirements for flexibility and robustness through the first cycle of operation. At the same time, these startup tests provide a unique opportunity for validation of core management code systems through comparisons of model predictions against measured results. This panel will provide an opportunity to learn from recent experience in developing and implementing initial core designs and startup testing campaigns through a series of short presentations followed by a question and answer session.
John Hannah
Global Nuclear Fuel
Westinghouse Electric Co.
Lauren Schweitzer
Dwayne Fitts
Framatome
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Attachment — Actually Lauren
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