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Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Division Spotlight
Aerospace Nuclear Science & Technology
Organized to promote the advancement of knowledge in the use of nuclear science and technologies in the aerospace application. Specialized nuclear-based technologies and applications are needed to advance the state-of-the-art in aerospace design, engineering and operations to explore planetary bodies in our solar system and beyond, plus enhance the safety of air travel, especially high speed air travel. Areas of interest will include but are not limited to the creation of nuclear-based power and propulsion systems, multifunctional materials to protect humans and electronic components from atmospheric, space, and nuclear power system radiation, human factor strategies for the safety and reliable operation of nuclear power and propulsion plants by non-specialized personnel and more.
Meeting Spotlight
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
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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Industry Update—May 2025
Here is a recap of industry happenings from the recent past:
TerraPower’s Natrium reactor advances on several fronts
TerraPower has continued making aggressive progress in several areas for its under-construction Natrium Reactor Demonstration Project since the beginning of the year. Natrium is an advanced 345-MWe reactor that has liquid sodium as a coolant, improved fuel utilization, enhanced safety features, and an integrated energy storage system, allowing for a brief power output boost to 500-MWe if needed for grid resiliency. The company broke ground for its first Natrium plant in 2024 near a retiring coal plant in Kemmerer, Wyo.
George D. Cremeans, Richard F. Mahla
Nuclear Technology | Volume 87 | Number 4 | December 1989 | Pages 737-744
Technical Paper | TMI-2: Decontamination and Waste Management / Radioactive Waste Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT89-A27666
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The March 1979 accident at Three Mile Island Unit 2 released reactor coolant and core material particles to the reactor building basement and by various side streams to the auxiliary and fuel-handling building systems. Consequently, existing plant materials and incidental debris became radioactively contaminated from contact with the primary coolant discharge. Additionally, the makeup and purification (MUP) system demineralizer resins were degraded by exposure to thousands of curies of iodine and cesium trapped in the vessels. Area radiation levels, ranging from ten to thousands of roentgens per hour, prevented or severely restricted access to these areas and prohibited local decontamination methods. To decontaminate these areas, several alternative methods were evaluated, and one was selected as the most economically acceptable and plant-compatible method to remotely collect, process, and dispose of these radioactive materials and degraded resins. The decision was made to modify the two 14.38-kl (3800-gal) in-plant spent-resin storage tanks (SRSTs) to operate as particulate separators by a decantation process. The level of particulate concentration by this process was determined by the physical and radiochemical characteristics of the materials, relative to the subsequent requirements for solidification and disposal operations. Various modifications and features were added to each SRST to allow them to operate as clarifiers for concentrating sediments as well as resins. The sequence of operation is to pump a batch of solids entrained in water to a tank, allow it to settle, decant the supernatant, repeat this process until sufficient solids are collected, and then pump the solids to a solidification disposal container. The first two waste streams processed by the SRSTs were the containment basement sediment and contaminated resins from the cleanup demineralizers. A campaign is currently in progress to remove the contaminated resins from the MUP demineralizers.