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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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The journey of the U.S. fuel cycle
Craig Piercycpiercy@ans.org
While most big journeys begin with a clear objective, they rarely start with an exact knowledge of the route. When commissioning the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1803, President Thomas Jefferson didn’t provide specific “turn right at the big mountain” directions to the Corps of Discovery. He gave goal-oriented instructions: explore the Missouri River, find its source, search for a transcontinental water route to the Pacific, and build scientific and cultural knowledge along the way.
Jefferson left it up to Lewis and Clark to turn his broad, geopolitically motivated guidance into gritty reality.
Similarly, U.S. nuclear policy has begun a journey toward closing the U.S. nuclear fuel cycle. There is a clear signal of support for recycling from the Trump administration, along with growing bipartisan excitement in Congress. Yet the precise path remains unclear.
M. M. R. Williams
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 140 | Number 2 | February 2002 | Pages 189-194
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE02-A2255
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Flux depression factors and measures of asymmetry are presented for an absorbing and scattering slab in an infinite medium in which there is an overall exponential flux. One speed transport theory is employed. The effect of the slab on the exponential flux is determined and the necessary correction factors to recover the unperturbed flux from the activation of the slab are calculated. Although this is an old problem, we present here a new formalism which highlights clearly some important physical aspects.
