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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
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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
Take steps on SNF and HLW disposal
Matt Bowen
With a new administration and Congress, it is time once again to ponder what will happen—if anything—on U.S. spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste management policy over the next few years. One element of the forthcoming discussion seems clear: The executive and legislative branches are eager to talk about recycling commercial SNF. Whatever the merits of doing so, it does not obviate the need for one or more facilities for disposal of remaining long-lived radionuclides. For that reason, making progress on U.S. disposal capabilities remains urgent, lest the associated radionuclide inventories simply be left for future generations to deal with.
In March, Rick Perry, who was secretary of energy during President Trump’s first administration, observed that during his tenure at the Department of Energy it became clear to him that any plan to move SNF “required some practical consent of the receiving state and local community.”1
Sunday, June 12, 2022
Two Morning Tutorials from 8 am to 12 pm
Title: Criticality Calculations using MCNP6.3
Requirements for Attendees: General knowledge of MCNP6
Summary Paragraph: This tutorial focuses on using MCNP6.3 to perform criticality calculations for criticality safety and reactor physics applications and promoting use of MCNP version 6.3 at DOE sites. Lectures provide an overview of Monte Carlo simulation methods and highlight state-of-the-art in criticality simulations, eigenvalue calculations, convergence analysis and bias in k-effective. New features and physics improvements in MCNP6.3 will be covered including adaptive meshing, fission-matrix, accelerated fission convergence of neutron distribution, and new statistical tests for convergence. Sensitivity and uncertainty analysis using Whisper-1.1 will be discussed and calculation examples demonstrated.
Title: Using the SCALE Sampler Sequence for Uncertainty Quantification and Parametric Studies
Requirements for Attendees: No requirements; however, attendees with SCALE 6.2 (or more recent) can participate in UQ demos, and attendees with SCALE 6.2.2 (or more recent) can participate in UQ & parametric studies demos.
Summary Paragraph: This tutorial will introduce the capabilities of the Sampler sequence, available starting in SCALE 6.2. The initial implementation of Sampler included uncertainty quantification (UQ) based on Monte Carlo sampling of multigroup nuclear data or input parameters in any SCALE sequence. The tutorial will touch on nuclear data sampling but will focus on UQ for input materials and geometry descriptions in criticality safety models. The Sampler sequence was expanded in the 6.2.2 update to include a parametric study capability. This capability is particularly useful for nuclear criticality safety evaluations and has been used extensively in recent work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Demonstrations of both the UQ and parametric capabilities will be included. Attendees with licensed copies of SCALE 6.2 installed on their devices will be able to follow along with presenters in the demonstrations.
Two Afternoon Tutorials from 2 pm to 5 pm
Title: Benchmarking in Today’s World
Requirements for Attendees: Fill out questionnaire regarding background and interest as part of registration; a short pre-reading will be sent to all attendees
Summary Paragraph: The speakers will talk through what is required and the level of detail required in each section of an ICSBEP benchmark. People experienced in the ICSBEP process and performing evaluations will present covering the overall process and the three main sections of benchmarks. Information gained will support developing benchmarks as well as knowledge regarding how they can be potentially used once published.
Title: Using UNF-ST&NDARDS for Criticality Analysis of Spent Fuel Systems
Summary Paragraph: UNF-ST&DARDS is being developed to provide the ability to perform automated analysis of spent fuel storage and transportation systems. One of the key capabilities of UNF-ST&DARDS is to perform criticality analysis of dry casks. UNF-ST&DARDS allows for modelling the variation of cask payload burnup enrichments and cooling times through a flexible GUI. Users can also modify, neutron absorber loadings, water soluble boron concentrations, and fuel and canister dimensions for fresh and spent fuel. This demonstration will show users how to perform criticality analysis for casks using templates and graphical user interface. Attendees have no requirements to watch the demonstrate, however, an RSICC license for UNF-ST&DARDS and SCALE is necessary if they would like to follow along.
Last modified January 21, 2022, 8:51am PST
