ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
Latest Magazine Issues
Aug 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
September 2026
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
August 2026
Latest News
Undeclared uranium hitches a ride on cobalt exports from Congo, study says
Philippe (left) and Manzuk quantified the amount of uranium that has been exported from the DRC in cobalt shipments or left behind in the environment. (Photo: Joel Hallberg/UW–Madison)
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Princeton University have published a study in Nature Communications that calls attention to a blind spot in nuclear nonproliferation: The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has exported thousands of metric tons of uranium, and there is no accounting for where it has gone.
In partnership with Lighthouse Reports and the Financial Times, UW–Madison nuclear engineering professor and nuclear security expert Sébastien Philippe and Ryan Manzuk, a geologist and research fellow in Philippe’s group and at Princeton, conducted the study using countrywide mineralization and geochemical data.
Holly R. Trellue, Richard J. Kapernick, D. V. Rao, J. Zhang, Jack D. Galloway
Nuclear Technology | Volume 182 | Number 1 | April 2013 | Pages 26-38
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors/Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-A15823
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper describes a new reactor concept: the Salt-cooled Modular Innovative THorium HEavy water-moderated Reactor System (SMITHERS), which addresses the goals of (a) evolving deployment needs, (b) increasing overall fuel burnup, (c) reducing proliferation risk, and (d) providing high-efficiency power generation. The reactor is modular and thus scalable from a few to hundreds of megawatts(thermal). The concept further burns used fuel from light water reactors (LWRs) without aqueous separations, reducing costs and proliferation pathways relative to current reprocessing plants. The additional burning of LWR fuel reduces proliferation risk by reducing global inventories of plutonium from used fuel in a way that does not isolate weapons-useable material and that increases the amount of power produced per ton of mined uranium. Improved fuel utilization through the potential use of thorium provides cost benefits by increasing neutron economy and enabling operation at higher efficiencies. Neutron economy is increased by using the lower neutron energies associated with large quantities of heavy water moderation and/or thorium for innovative reactor control and constant long-term power generation (i.e., sustainability). Finally, the proposed reactor also generates high-temperature coolant discharge in the form of liquid salt without coolant pressurization for external process heat applications such as oil extraction. Salt offers significant improvement over existing coolants such as light water and heavy water, which require pressurization to operate at high temperatures, adding to the cost and complexity of reactor operation. SMITHERS designs discussed in this paper either burned a full core of used fuel, ThO2 with 1.2 wt% PuO2 or other fissile material, or a combination of the two.