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
Reactor Physics
The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
Meeting Spotlight
2025 ANS Annual Conference
June 15–18, 2025
Chicago, IL|Chicago Marriott Downtown
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
Jun 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
August 2025
Nuclear Technology
July 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Nuclear fuel cycle reimagined: Powering the next frontiers from nuclear waste
In the fall of 2023, a small Zeno Power team accomplished a major feat: they demonstrated the first strontium-90 heat source in decades—and the first-ever by a commercial company.
Zeno Power worked with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to fabricate and validate this Z1 heat source design at the lab’s Radiochemical Processing Laboratory. The Z1 demonstration heralded renewed interest in developing radioisotope power system (RPS) technology. In early 2025, the heat source was disassembled, and the Sr-90 was returned to the U.S. Department of Energy for continued use.
Eric P. Robertson, Michael G. McKellar, Lee O. Nelson
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 61 | Number 1 | January 2012 | Pages 452-457
Other Concepts and Assessments | Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Conference on Emerging Nuclear Energy Systems | doi.org/10.13182/FST12-A13462
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper evaluates the integration of a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) to an in situ oil shale retort operation producing 7950 m3/D (50,000 bbl/day). The large amount of heat required to pyrolyze the oil shale and produce oil would typically be provided by combustion of fossil fuels, but can also be delivered by an HTGR. Two cases were considered: a base case which includes no nuclear integration, and an HTGR-integrated case.The HTGR was assumed to be physically located near the oil shale operation such that heat losses during surface transport of the heating fluid were negligible. Transferring the required retort heat for all three cases to the underground oil shale was modeled by a series of closed-loop pipes. The pipes ran from the surface to the desired subsurface zone where the majority of the heat was transferred to the oil shale; the cooled fluid was then returned to the heat source at the surface for reheating. The heat source was a natural gas fired boiler for the base case and was an HTGR for the HTGR-integrated case. The fluid and heat flows through the circulation systems were modeled using Hyprotech's HYSYS.PlantTM process modeling software.A mass and energy balance model was developed to evaluate oil production, gas production and usage, electricity generation and usage, heat requirements, and CO2 emissions for each case. Integrating an HTGR to an in situ oil shale retort operation appeared quite feasible and had some notable advantages over the base case. The HTGR-integrated case produced the same amount of refinery-ready oil, four times the amount of gas, 8% of the amount of CO2, and 70% of amount of electricity as the base case evaluated with retort heat coming from combustion of fossil fuels.
