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2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Shifting the paradigm of supply chain
Chad Wolf
When I began my nuclear career, I was coached up in the nuclear energy culture of the day to “run silent, run deep,” a mindset rooted in the U.S. Navy’s submarine philosophy. That was the norm—until Fukushima.
The nuclear renaissance that many had envisioned hit a wall. The focus shifted from expansion to survival. Many utility communications efforts pivoted from silence to broadcast, showcasing nuclear energy’s elegance and reliability. Nevertheless, despite being clean baseload 24/7 power that delivered a 90 percent capacity factor or higher, nuclear energy was painted as risky and expensive (alongside energy policies and incentives that favored renewables).
Economics became a driving force threatening to shutter nuclear power. The Delivering the Nuclear Promise initiative launched in 2015 challenged the industry to sustain high performance yet cut costs by up to 30 percent.
C. Poletiko, P. Trabuc, J. Durand, B. Tormos, L. Pignoly
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 48 | Number 1 | July-August 2005 | Pages 194-199
Technical Paper | Tritium Science and Technology - Decontamination and Waste | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A910
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Due to its high diffusivity and different trapping phenomena, tritium is present in materials, such as steels which are in use in different parts of a nuclear power reactor or even in graphite which is present in fusion reactor.From waste management point of view, it is necessary to know as accurately as possible the tritium inventory in such materials before disposal. Moreover the knowledge of tritium species (HTO or HT. . .) is also a significant information in case of detritiation prior to storage, since countries regulation already limit tritium contents and releases. There are three different strategies for tritiated waste management. The first one consists in a storage with confinement packages the second one is waiting for radioactive decay. The third one consists in the application of detritiation processes.Studies have been performed to determine different processes that could be used for tritium removal. The aim of this paper was, to study, at laboratory scale, different procedures which may be used for stainless steels and carbon materials detritiation.Thermal detritiation kinetics till 1300 K has been studied under various atmospheres; full chemical dissolution of samples has also been performed both for steel and graphite, this to perfectly know the tritium content in such matrices. Finally a study of tritium content in steel layers has also been made, to learn about the tritium behaviour. All results are given, allowing the possibility to take a decision either for detritiation procedure or storage conditions.The main result is that thermal out-gassing enables higher than 95 % tritium extraction from the bulk at temperature in the range of 600K, without any material destruction under Hytec gas (Ar + 5% volume H2).