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Division Spotlight
Education, Training & Workforce Development
The Education, Training & Workforce Development Division provides communication among the academic, industrial, and governmental communities through the exchange of views and information on matters related to education, training and workforce development in nuclear and radiological science, engineering, and technology. Industry leaders, education and training professionals, and interested students work together through Society-sponsored meetings and publications, to enrich their professional development, to educate the general public, and to advance nuclear and radiological science and engineering.
Meeting Spotlight
2025 ANS Annual Conference
June 15–18, 2025
Chicago, IL|Chicago Marriott 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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Smarter waste strategies: Helping deliver on the promise of advanced nuclear
At COP28, held in Dubai in 2023, a clear consensus emerged: Nuclear energy must be a cornerstone of the global clean energy transition. With electricity demand projected to soar as we decarbonize not just power but also industry, transport, and heat, the case for new nuclear is compelling. More than 20 countries committed to tripling global nuclear capacity by 2050. In the United States alone, the Department of Energy forecasts that the country’s current nuclear capacity could more than triple, adding 200 GW of new nuclear to the existing 95 GW by mid-century.
Meyer Pobereskin, Kenneth D. Kok, William J. Madia
Nuclear Technology | Volume 41 | Number 2 | December 1978 | Pages 149-167
Technical Paper | Extraction of Energy From Nuclear Fuels Without Reprocessing to Separate Plutonium / Fuel Cycle | doi.org/10.13182/NT78-A32101
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The technical feasibility of a coprocessing concept involving recovery of all the actinides in the spent fuel as a product group has been analyzed. It has been shown that this can be accomplished by a simple modification of the Purex process. The recovered actinide product group can be reconstituted as a fuel for recycle in either light water reactors (LWRs) or liquid-metal fast breeder reactors (LMFBRs), either by addition of moderately enriched uranium for the LWR case or by controlled partial partitioning of uranium in the LMFBR case. Partial partitioning of uranium from a uranium-plutonium extract (that may contain other transuranics, especially neptunium) can be carried out under Purex process conditions that preclude separation of plutonium. A steady-state fuel composition is approached in eight cycles (40 yr) for the LWRs and five cycles (20 yr) for the LMFBRs. Potential for proliferation can be greatly reduced for subnational diversion since the plutonium is not separated from its actinide homologs, nor is the recovered actinide fuel fully decontaminated from fission products. The possibility of proliferation by national diversion can be impeded. Recycle of the actinides reduces, via transmutation, the cumulative amount of actinides produced, defers the bulk of the actinide waste disposal to the end of the useful fuel lifetime, and ameliorates the high-level waste management problem.