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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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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Nuclear Science and Engineering
September 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
October 2025
Latest News
Shifting the paradigm of supply chain
Chad Wolf
When I began my nuclear career, I was coached up in the nuclear energy culture of the day to “run silent, run deep,” a mindset rooted in the U.S. Navy’s submarine philosophy. That was the norm—until Fukushima.
The nuclear renaissance that many had envisioned hit a wall. The focus shifted from expansion to survival. Many utility communications efforts pivoted from silence to broadcast, showcasing nuclear energy’s elegance and reliability. Nevertheless, despite being clean baseload 24/7 power that delivered a 90 percent capacity factor or higher, nuclear energy was painted as risky and expensive (alongside energy policies and incentives that favored renewables).
Economics became a driving force threatening to shutter nuclear power. The Delivering the Nuclear Promise initiative launched in 2015 challenged the industry to sustain high performance yet cut costs by up to 30 percent.
James E. Struve, Nick Tsoulfanidis
Nuclear Technology | Volume 21 | Number 3 | March 1974 | Pages 201-207
Technical Paper | Material | doi.org/10.13182/NT74-A31390
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Calculations of the tritium breeding ratio and heating rates for two proposed blanket designs are obtained by using the Monte Carlo method. The materials used for the blanket are vanadium and lithium. Lithium is used to slow down the neutrons and produce tritium by the He and He reactions. Vanadium is used as the structural material. Results obtained indicate that a tritium breeding ratio of 1.3 is easily obtained by either design and that the heating rates for both designs are similar. These results are in general agreement with previous studies of fusion reactor blankets which used niobium as the structural material.
