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
Education, Training & Workforce Development
The Education, Training & Workforce Development Division provides communication among the academic, industrial, and governmental communities through the exchange of views and information on matters related to education, training and workforce development in nuclear and radiological science, engineering, and technology. Industry leaders, education and training professionals, and interested students work together through Society-sponsored meetings and publications, to enrich their professional development, to educate the general public, and to advance nuclear and radiological science and engineering.
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
July 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Smarter waste strategies: Helping deliver on the promise of advanced nuclear
At COP28, held in Dubai in 2023, a clear consensus emerged: Nuclear energy must be a cornerstone of the global clean energy transition. With electricity demand projected to soar as we decarbonize not just power but also industry, transport, and heat, the case for new nuclear is compelling. More than 20 countries committed to tripling global nuclear capacity by 2050. In the United States alone, the Department of Energy forecasts that the country’s current nuclear capacity could more than triple, adding 200 GW of new nuclear to the existing 95 GW by mid-century.
C. C. Baker, D. A. Ehst, J. N. Brooks, K. Evans, Jr.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 10 | Number 3 | November 1986 | Pages 709-716
Fusion Reactor Design—I | Proceedings of the Seveth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (Reno, Nevada, June 15–19, 1986) | doi.org/10.13182/FST86-A24825
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A number of advances in plasma physics and engineering promise to greatly improve the reactor prospects of tokamaks. The following features, in particular, have been examined: (a) large aspect ratio (A ≈ 6), which may ease maintenance; (b) high beta (β ≳ 0.20) without indentation, which brings the maximum toroidal field down to about 7 T; (c) low toroidal current (I ≈ 5MA), which reduces the cost of the current drive and equilibrium field system; and (d) steady state operation with current density control via fast and slow wave current drive. The key to high beta operation with low toroidal current lies in utilizing second stability regime equilibria with the required current distributions produced by an appropriate selection of wave driver frequencies and power spectra. The ray tracing and current drive calculation is self-consistent with the actual magnetic fields produced in the plasma. In addition to matching desirable high-beta equilibria, this method is capable of producing a large variety of new equilibria, many of which look attractive. The impurity control activities in TPSS have emphasized the self-pumping concept as applied to using the entire first wall or “slot” limiters. The blanket design effort has emphasized liquid metal and Flibe concepts. The reference concept is a liquid lithium/vanadium, self-cooled configuration. Overall, there exists a number of major design improvements which will substantially improve the attractiveness of tokamak reactors.