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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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NRC approves V.C. Summer’s second license renewal
Dominion Energy’s V.C. Summer nuclear power plant, in Jenkinsville, S.C., has been authorized to operate for 80 years, until August 2062, following the renewal of its operating license by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a second time.
Edward J. Waller
Nuclear Technology | Volume 175 | Number 1 | July 2011 | Pages 89-92
Technical Note | Special Issue on the 16th Biennial Topical Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division / Radiation Measurements and General Instrumentation | doi.org/10.13182/NT11-A12275
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Recent nuclear weapons testing in the limit of low-yield detonations has underscored the need to ensure that radiation detection and monitoring equipment can adequately respond to these events. Testing and validating equipment in appropriate reference fields have become difficult since the closing of the NATO primary fission spectra reference at the Aberdeen Proving Ground Fast Burst Reactor facility post-9/11. A simple and low-cost device was designed to perform testing of commercial off-the-shelf neutron detection equipment to the expected spectral shape from a low-yield nuclear weapon. By enclosing an 241AmBe (,n) neutron source within a heavy water-moderated sphere, the general shape of a 1-kiloton standard fission weapon was generated at 1 m, valid between 100 and 2000 keV. The 1-m dose rate expected from this configuration is [approximately]2.16 × 10-10 Svh-1Bq-1 , which is less than one-half of the unshielded dose rate.