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
Nuclear Criticality Safety
NCSD provides communication among nuclear criticality safety professionals through the development of standards, the evolution of training methods and materials, the presentation of technical data and procedures, and the creation of specialty publications. In these ways, the division furthers the exchange of technical information on nuclear criticality safety with the ultimate goal of promoting the safe handling of fissionable materials outside reactors.
Meeting Spotlight
Nuclear and Emerging Technologies for Space (NETS 2025)
May 4–8, 2025
Huntsville, AL|Huntsville Marriott and the Space & Rocket Center
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 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
U.S. nuclear capacity factors: Stability and energy dominance
Nuclear generation has inertia. Massive spinning turbines keep electricity flowing during grid disturbances. But nuclear generation also has a kind of inertia that isn’t governed by the laws of motion.
Starting—and then finishing—a power reactor construction project requires significant upfront effort and money, but once built a reactor can run for decades. Capacity factors of U.S. reactors have remained near 90 percent since the turn of the century, but it took more than a decade of improvements to reach that steady state. The payoff for nuclear investments is long-term and reliable.
November 9–13, 2014
Nuclear-The Foundation of Clean Energy
Anaheim, CA|Disneyland Hotel
The Disneyland
General Chair:
Ed Halpin (CNO, PG&E)
Assistant General Chair:
Lynn E. Walter (Station Support Director, Diablo Canyon Power Plant, Pacific Gas & Electric Company)
Program Chair:
Patrick Pinhero (Professor, University of Missouri/Columbia)
Assistant Program Chairs:
John Bess (R&D Nuclear Engineer, Idaho National Laboratory)
Jim Byrne (Byrne and Associates LLC)
Embedded Topical Meeting
Brian D. Wirth (Governor's Chair Professor of Nuclear Engineering, University of Tennessee)
Program Co-Chairs:
Vincent Chan (Theory and Computational Science Program Leader, General Atomics)
Rajesh Maingi (Head of Boundary & PFC Research, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory)
