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.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Latest Magazine Issues
Mar 2026
Jan 2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
April 2026
Nuclear Technology
February 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
RIC panel discusses pathway to fusion commercialization
Fusion leaders at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s annual Regulatory Information Conference discussed the path forward for regulating the burgeoning fusion industry. The speakers discussed government and private industry initiatives in the United States and United Kingdom, with a focus on efforts shaping the near-term deployment of commercial fusion machines.
A recurring theme was the need to explain the difference between fission and fusion. Representatives from the Department of Energy and Type One Energy highlighted this as an important distinction for regulators, as it will allow fusion to undergo its own independent maturation process for developing standards and regulations in the same way that fission has. Lea Perlas, Fusion Program director at the Virginia Department of Health, said that confusion between fission and fusion has been a common cause for misplaced concerns among community members surrounding Commonwealth Fusion Systems’ proposed fusion plant site near Richmond, Va.
B. R. Wienke
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 4 | Number 3 | November 1983 | Pages 426-436
Technical Papers | Plasma Engineering | doi.org/10.13182/FST83-A22792
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A one-dimensional, multigroup, discrete ordinates technique for computing electron energy deposition in plasmas is detailed. The Fokker-Planck collision operator is employed in the continuous approximation and electric fields (considered external) are included in the equation. Bremsstrahlung processes are not treated. Comparisons with analytic and Monte Carlo results are given. Fits to deposition profiles and energy scaling are proposed and discussed for monoenergetic and Maxwellian sources in the range, 0 to 150 keV, with and without uniform fields. The techniques employed to track electrons are generally useful in situations where the background plasma temperature is an order of magnitude smaller than the electron energy and collective plasma effects are negligible. We have used the approach successfully in laser pellet implosion applications.