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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
2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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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February 2024
Latest News
Can hydrogen be the transportation fuel in an otherwise nuclear economy?
Let’s face it: The global economy should be powered primarily by nuclear power. And it probably will by the end of this century, with a still-significant assist from renewables and hydro. Once nuclear systems are dominant, the costs come down to where gas is now; and when carbon emissions are reduced to a small portion of their present state, it will become obvious that most other sources are only good in niche settings. I mean, why use small modular reactors to load-follow when they can just produce that power instead of buffering it?
Leon Leenders, Udo Wehmann, Christopher Grove, Kevin Hesketh, Winfried Zwermann
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 178 | Number 4 | December 2014 | Pages 509-523
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE14-15
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The zero-power reactor VENUS (Vulcain Experimental Nuclear Study) was built in 1963–1964 at CEN-SCK, Mol, Belgium, as a nuclear mock-up of a projected spectral shift marine reactor called VULCAIN. The facility was modified in 1966 and 1967 in preparation for carrying out a series of critical experiments for the Belgian Plutonium Recycle Programme (PRP), which was partially supported by EURATOM. This was the VENUS-PRP program that took place between 1967 and 1975. VENUS-PRP-9 and VENUS-PRP-9/1, and VENUS-PRP-7 were two series of these PRP configurations that were carried out in 1967–1968 and that have recently been subject to evaluations as part of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Nuclear Energy Agency International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP). The VENUS-PRP-9 and VENUS-PRP-9/1 configurations focused on the study of the power distribution across the boundary between a standard UO2 fuel region, enriched to 4 wt% 235U, and a mixed oxide fuel region made of UO2, enriched to 3 wt% 235U with ∼1 wt% PuO2, simulating a one-cycle burnt fuel. The IRPhEP evaluation focused on evaluating reaction rates and powers measured along a line that crossed the boundary between the two regions. In the VENUS-PRP-7, VENUS-PRP-7/1, and VENUS-PRP-7/3 series—which used essentially the same fuel pins—reactivities, reactivity worths of substituted and removed fuel pins, and radial fission rate distributions were measured; these quantities were evaluated in the framework of the IRPhEP project.