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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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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August 2025
Latest News
Startup looks to commercialize inertial fusion energy
Another startup hoping to capitalize on progress the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has made in realizing inertial fusion energy has been launched. On August 27, San Francisco–based Inertia Enterprises, a private fusion power start-up, announced the formation of the company with the goal of commercializing fusion energy.
Glen A. Warren, Kevin K. Anderson, Jonathan Kulisek, Yaron Danon, Adam Weltz, A. Gavron, Jason Harris, Trevor N. Stewart
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 179 | Number 3 | March 2015 | Pages 264-273
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE13-71
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Improved nondestructive assay of isotopic masses in used nuclear fuel would be valuable for nuclear safeguards operations associated with the transport, storage, and reprocessing of used nuclear fuel. Our collaboration is examining the feasibility of using lead slowing-down spectrometry techniques to assay the isotopic fissile masses in used nuclear fuel assemblies. We present the application of our analysis algorithms to measurements conducted with a lead spectrometer. The measurements involved a single fresh fuel pin and discrete 239Pu and 235U samples. We are able to describe the isotopic fissile masses with root-mean-square errors over seven different configurations to 6.3% for 239Pu and 2.7% for 235U. Significant effort is yet needed to demonstrate the applicability of these algorithms for used-fuel assemblies, but the results reported here are encouraging in demonstrating that we are making progress toward that goal.