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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 8–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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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
Japan gets new U for enrichment as global power and fuel plans grow
President Trump is in Japan today, with a visit with new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on the agenda. Takaichi, who took office just last week as Japan’s first female prime minister, has already spoken in favor of nuclear energy and of accelerating the restart of Japan’s long-shuttered power reactors, as Reuters and others have reported. Much of the uranium to power those reactors will be enriched at Japan’s lone enrichment facility—part of Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd.’s Rokkasho fuel complex—which accepted its first delivery of fresh uranium hexafluoride (UF₆) in 11 years earlier this month.
R. C. Howard
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 10 | Number 2 | June 1961 | Pages 173-182
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE61-A25956
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Thermionic cell development is progressing at such a rapid rate that some of the data required for incorporation of thermionic converters into reactor systems is already becoming available. Although such information is not yet sufficient for detailed design and performance evaluation of nuclear-thermionic systems, it is adequate for preliminary analysis. As more experimental information is obtained, these preliminary analyses will have to be reviewed and the concepts reevaluated. However, they have already shown the interesting potential of—and the severe problems to be overcome in—applying nuclear-thermionic systems in space, marine, and central-station power plants. In this article, the possible concepts for utilizing thermionic cells with nuclear reactors are reviewed and the feasibility of their applications is discussed.