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
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
May 2024
Jan 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2024
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
How robust is HALEU from a nonproliferation perspective?
Shikha Prasad
High-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) has emerged as a popular fuel choice for advanced small modular reactors due to its long power production periods before refueling. It is currently being pursued by TerraPower, X-energy, BWX Technologies, Kairos, Oklo, and other reactor companies. HALEU has a uranium-235 enrichment ranging from 5 percent to 20 percent, whereas traditional LWRs use low-enriched uranium fuel enriched up to 5 percent.
HALEU will provide power for longer durations, compared with traditional LWRs. But could it also provide an opportunity for more rapid proliferation, as is speculated in a 2023 National Academy of Sciences report on advanced nuclear reactors (nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/26630/)?
If a nuclear proliferator conspires to divert fresh nuclear fuel for weapons production when it has not been used in a reactor, the effort required in separative work units (SWUs) to enrich U-235 from 5 percent to 90 percent and that required to enrich from 20 percent to 90 percent are both very small, compared with the effort required to enrich U-235 from its natural abundance to the initial 5 percent.
Technical Session|Sponsored by Nuclear Fuel Cycles
Tuesday, December 12, 2023|3:10–4:50PM CST|Galerie 6
Session Chair:
Denia Djokic (Univ. Michigan)
Alternate Chair:
Jie Lian (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
Track Organizers:
Sarah Finkeldi (Univ. California, Irvine)
Yong Yang (Univ. Florida)
To access paper attachments, you must be logged in and registered for the meeting.
Register NowLog In
Opportunities of Advanced Reactor Systems to Support Nuclear Fuel Cycle Development Options
3:10–3:50PM CST
Patricia Paviet (PNNL)
Paper
Thermophysical Properties of Actinide-Containing Molten Salts
3:50–4:10PM CST
D. Nathanael Gardner (Univ. California, Berkeley), Maximilien Denis (Univ. California, Berkeley), Randall Chiu (Univ. California, Berkeley), Raluca O. Scarlat (Univ. California, Berkeley)
Thermodynamic Assessment of Fourteen Pseudo-Ternary Reciprocal Salt Systems Relevant to Molten Salt Reactors
4:10–4:30PM CST
Clara Dixon (Univ. South Carolina), Mina Aziziha (Univ. South Carolina), Juliano Schorne-Pinto (Univ. South Carolina), Jorge Paz Soldan Palma (Univ. South Carolina), Theodore Besmann (Univ. South Carolina)
Turing Instability in the Solid State: Void Lattices in Irradiated Metals
4:30–4:50PM CST
M.W. Noble (Oxford Univ.), M.R. Tonks (Univ. Florida), S.P. Fitzgerald (Univ. Leeds)
To join the conversation, you must be logged in and registered for the meeting.
