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Division Spotlight
Fusion Energy
This division promotes the development and timely introduction of fusion energy as a sustainable energy source with favorable economic, environmental, and safety attributes. The division cooperates with other organizations on common issues of multidisciplinary fusion science and technology, conducts professional meetings, and disseminates technical information in support of these goals. Members focus on the assessment and resolution of critical developmental issues for practical fusion energy applications.
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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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?
Francis Barbry, Patrick Fouillaud, Pascal Grivot, Ludovic Reverdy
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 161 | Number 2 | February 2009 | Pages 160-187
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE08-15
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In 1967, the Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (French Atomic Energy Agency) performed its first research on criticality accidents for the purpose of limiting their impact on people, the environment, and nuclear facilities themselves. A criticality accident is accompanied by intense neutron and gamma emissions and release of radioactive fission products - gases and aerosols - generating risk of irradiation and contamination. This work has supplemented earlier work in criticality safety, which concentrated on critical mass measurements and computations. Understanding of the consequences of criticality accidents was limited. Emergency planning was hampered by lack of data. Information became available from pulsed reactor experiments, but the experiments were restricted to the established reactor configurations. The objectives of research performed at the Valduc criticality laboratory, mainly on aqueous fissile media, using the CRAC and SILENE facilities, by multidisciplinary teams of physicists, dosimetry specialists, and radiobiologists, were to model criticality accident physics, estimate irradiation risks and radioactive releases, detect excursions, and organize emergency response. The results of the Valduc experiments have contributed toward improved understanding of criticality accident phenomenology and better evaluation of the risks associated with such accidents.