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Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy
The mission of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy Division (NNPD) is to promote the peaceful use of nuclear technology while simultaneously preventing the diversion and misuse of nuclear material and technology through appropriate safeguards and security, and promotion of nuclear nonproliferation policies. To achieve this mission, the objectives of the NNPD are to: Promote policy that discourages the proliferation of nuclear technology and material to inappropriate entities. Provide information to ANS members, the technical community at large, opinion leaders, and decision makers to improve their understanding of nuclear nonproliferation issues. Become a recognized technical resource on nuclear nonproliferation, safeguards, and security issues. Serve as the integration and coordination body for nuclear nonproliferation activities for the ANS. Work cooperatively with other ANS divisions to achieve these objective nonproliferation policies.
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International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
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Dragonfly, a Pu-fueled drone heading to Titan, gets key NASA approval
Curiosity landed on Mars sporting a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) in 2012, and a second NASA rover, Perseverance, landed in 2021. Both are still rolling across the red planet in the name of science. Another exploratory craft with a similar plutonium-238–fueled RTG but a very different mission—to fly between multiple test sites on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon—recently got one step closer to deployment.
On April 25, NASA and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) announced that the Dragonfly mission to Saturn’s icy moon passed its critical design review. “Passing this mission milestone means that Dragonfly’s mission design, fabrication, integration, and test plans are all approved, and the mission can now turn its attention to the construction of the spacecraft itself,” according to NASA.
David S. Zuckerman, Daniel E. Driemeyer, Lester M. Waganer, Donald J. Dudziak
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 13 | Number 2 | February 1988 | Pages 217-254
Technical Paper | Heavy-Ion Fusion | doi.org/10.13182/FST88-A25103
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A computerized systems model of a heavy-ion fusion (HIF) reactor power plant is presented. The model can be used to analyze the behavior and projected costs of a commercial power plant using an induction linear accelerator (Linac) as a driver. Each major component of the model (targets, reactor cavity, Linac, beam transport, power flow, balance of plant, and costing) is discussed. Various target, reactor cavity, Linac, and beam transport schemes are examined and compared. The preferred operating regime for such a power plant is also examined. The results show that HIF power plants can compete with other advanced energy concepts at the 1000-MW(electric) power level [cost of electricity (COE) ∼50 mill/kW-h] provided that the cost savings predicted for Linacs using higher charge-state ions (+3) can be realized. The induction Linac driver is still a major component of the total capital cost (43%), but it no longer appears that large 4000-MW(electric), $5 billion (1984) power plants will be required to make the economics of HIF look favorable. More importantly, the results also indicate that there are several different combinations of target and reactor cavity options that lead to COEs within 10% of the overall minimum. The induction Linac's higher efficiency (>20%) is able to compensate for changes in target concept (gain) and cavity type with minimal change in COE. The potential cost reductions and apparent flexibility identified by this study together with the established performance data base from present-day accelerators are leading to renewed interest in induction Linacs for near-term target development applications.