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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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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
Optimizing nuclear plant outages: Data analytics tools and methods for enhancing resilience and efficiency
Nuclear power plant refueling outages are among the most complex phases in a plant’s operational cycle.1 During these outages, tens of thousands of activities, including maintenance and surveillance, are conducted simultaneously within a short timeframe. Typically lasting three to four weeks, these operations involve large crews of contractors with diverse skill sets performing tasks ranging from testing and surveillance to maintenance. Outages may extend longer if major backfitting or modernization projects are planned. Consequently, plant outages are expensive, incurring significant operational costs, such as contractor labor and equipment, as well as the loss of generation while the plant is off line. This can easily cost a plant operator more than $1 million a day. Therefore, there is a constant need to mitigate the economic impact on plants by reducing the frequency, duration, and risks associated with these outages.2,3
K.R. Schultz, B.A. Engholm, R.F. Bourque, E.T. Cheng, M.J. Schaffer, C.P.C. Wong
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 10 | Number 3 | November 1986 | Pages 1279-1289
Fusion Application | doi.org/10.13182/FST86-A24907
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Fusion Applications and Market Evaluation (“FAME”) study, being conducted by GA Technologies for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and US Department of Energy, Office of Fusion Energy, (US DOE) is described. This two-year program has a FY86 objective of Evaluating Alternative Applications of Fusion, and a FY87 goal of Exploring Innovative Applications. Applications are being reviewed and categorized into Baseline, Nuclear, Chemical, Electromagnetic, and Thermal application categories. The “traditional” applications of electricity generation, fissile fuel and tritium production, and hydrogen production continue to look attractive. Particularly promising new applications to date, with potential for near-term markets, are isotope production and radiation processing, especially when allied with the traditional application of electricity production. The economics of separate applications as well as coproduction are discussed. The combination of electricity and 60Co production appears to be one of the most attractive.
