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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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U.S. nuclear supply chain: Ready for liftoff
Craig Piercycpiercy@ans.org
This month, September 8–11, the American Nuclear Society is teaming up with the Nuclear Energy Institute to host our first-ever Nuclear Energy Conference and Expo—NECX for short—in Atlanta. This new meeting combines ANS’s Utility Working Conference and NEI’s Nuclear Energy Assembly to form what NEI CEO Maria Korsnick and I hope will be the premier nuclear industry gathering in America.
We did this because after more than four decades of relative stagnation, the U.S. nuclear supply chain is finally entering a new era of dynamic growth. This resurgence is being driven by several powerful and increasingly durable forces: the explosive demand for electricity from artificial intelligence and data centers, an unprecedented wave of public and private acceptance of—and investment in—advanced nuclear technologies, and a strong market signal for reliable, on-demand power. Add the recent Trump administration executive orders on nuclear into the mix, and you have all the makings of an accelerant-rich business environment primed for rapid expansion.
Mary Lou Dunzik Gougar, Barry E. Scheetz, Darryl D. Siemer
Nuclear Technology | Volume 125 | Number 1 | January 1999 | Pages 93-103
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management and Disposal | doi.org/10.13182/NT99-A2935
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A cement capable of being hot isostatically pressed into a glass ceramic has been proposed as the waste form for spent-nuclear-fuel reprocessing wastes at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL). This intermediate cement, with a composition based on that of common glasses, has been designed and tested. The cement formulations included mixed INEEL wastes, blast furnace slag, reactive silica, and INEEL soil or vermiculite, which were activated with potassium or sodium hydroxide. Following autoclave processing, the cements were characterized. X-ray diffraction analysis revealed three notable crystalline phases: quartz, calcite, and fluorite. Results of compressive strength testing ranged from 1452 to 4163 psi, exceeding the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)-suggested standard of >500 psi. From American National Standards Institute/American Nuclear Society 16.1-1986 leach testing, effective diffusivities for Cs were determined to be on the order of 10-11 to 10-10 cm2/s and for Sr were 10-12 cm2/s, which are four orders of magnitude less than diffusivities in some other radwaste materials. Average leach indices (LI) were 9.6 and 11.9 for Cs and Sr, respectively, meeting the NRC standard of LI > 6. The 28-day Materials Characterization Center-1 leach testing resulted in normalized elemental mass losses between 0.63 and 28 g/(m2day) for Cs and between 0.34 and 0.70 g/(m2day) for Sr. Strontium mass losses meet the <1 g/(m2day) industry-accepted standard while Cs losses indicate a process sensitive parameter.