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.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference 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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Aug 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
September 2025
Nuclear Technology
August 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
No impact from Savannah River radioactive wasps
The news is abuzz with recent news stories about four radioactive wasp nests found at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The site has been undergoing cleanup operations since the 1990s related to the production of plutonium and tritium for defense purposes during the Cold War. Cleanup activities are expected to continue into the 2060s.
George Patrick Lasche
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 83 | Number 1 | January 1983 | Pages 162-173
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE83-A17997
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A “back-of-the-envelope” method is presented for estimating neutron-induced radionuclide populations. The method uses energy-averaged neutron-reaction cross sections as base data and accounts for nonequilibrium nuclide formation by any sequence of transmutations; it provides for cases in which nuclides in transmutation sequences may be produced in more than one way or may decay or react to produce more than one product nuclide, and it accounts for both constant physical removal from circulating fluids and the severe depletion of parent nuclei. Evaluation in a series of time steps is not required; the calculation is done only for the time of interest. Estimates of neutron-induced radionuclide populations are made from the sum of population contributions corresponding to the most significant transmutation sequences by which the radionuclide is formed. Transmutation sequences are defined in such a way that population contributions corresponding to them can be evaluated from either exact analytic solutions or from a simple approximate procedure that always yields an upper bound to population contribution.