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Division Spotlight
Fuel Cycle & Waste Management
Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
Meeting Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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!
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Latest News
Take steps on SNF and HLW disposal
Matt Bowen
With a new administration and Congress, it is time once again to ponder what will happen—if anything—on U.S. spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste management policy over the next few years. One element of the forthcoming discussion seems clear: The executive and legislative branches are eager to talk about recycling commercial SNF. Whatever the merits of doing so, it does not obviate the need for one or more facilities for disposal of remaining long-lived radionuclides. For that reason, making progress on U.S. disposal capabilities remains urgent, lest the associated radionuclide inventories simply be left for future generations to deal with.
In March, Rick Perry, who was secretary of energy during President Trump’s first administration, observed that during his tenure at the Department of Energy it became clear to him that any plan to move SNF “required some practical consent of the receiving state and local community.”1
Jack Metzler, Thuy Le
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 28 | Number 3 | October 1995 | Pages 1359-1364
Design, Operation, and Maintenance of Tritium System | Proceedings of the Fifth Topical Meeting on Tritium Technology In Fission, Fusion, and Isotopic Applications Belgirate, Italy May 28-June 3, 1995 | doi.org/10.13182/FST95-A30601
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The maintenance of a nuclear weapons capability requires the periodic replacement of tritium contained in each of the weapons in the nuclear weapons stockpile because the radioactive decay of tritium reduces its quantity by about 5.5 percent per year. The Tritium Recycling Plant (TRP) performs the activities necessary to recover, purify, and recycle tritium returned from the field. Tritium is contained in vessels called reservoirs. The TRP also has the capability to conduct environmental tests to ensure the reliability and quality of the reservoirs. Currently, the U.S. has no source of new tritium. The proposed new TRP is an option the U.S. Department of Energy (U.S. DOE) is considering that could be collocated with the new Tritium Supply Plant if it is built at Oak Ridge, Pantex, Nevada Test Site, or Idaho National Engineering Laboratory1. It will comply with applicable environment, safety and health, (ES&H) regulations and orders. If the new Tritium Supply Plant is built at the Savannah River Site, the existing TRP would be upgraded, as necessary.
