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
Jun 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
August 2026
Nuclear Technology
July 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Launching into tomorrow: NRIC guides new era of research and deployment
In June 2025, the Department of Energy announced the Reactor Pilot Program, an authorization pathway that allowed reactor developers to partner with the DOE to get first-of-a-kind (FOAK) reactors built and tested. Soon after, the DOE rolled out a complementary Fuel Line Pilot Program, which aimed to fast-track fuel projects. In all, 20 projects were accepted into the new programs.
D. H. Berwald, J. J. Duderstadt
Nuclear Technology | Volume 42 | Number 1 | January 1979 | Pages 34-50
Technical Paper | Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT79-A32160
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A conceptual study of actinide waste partitioning and transmutation options has been performed. The goal was to identify an actinide burner system that could be expected to perform efficiently within the framework of a demonstrated controlled thermonuclear reactor technology. Reasonable extrapolations in technologies that could be expected to develop during the same time frame as the fusion driver itself are utilized. The laser fusion driven actinide waste burner (LDAB) system investigated uses partitioned fission power reactor generated actinide wastes dissolved in a molten tin alloy as feed material (or fuel). A novel fuel processing concept based on the high-temperature precipitation of “actinide-nitrides” from a liquid tin solution is proposed. This concept will allow for fission product removal to be performed entirely within the device at high burnup. No attempt has been made to optimize this system, but potential performance is impressive. The equilibrium LDAB design consumes 7.6 MT/yr of actinide waste. This corresponds to the waste output from 136 light water reactors [1000 MW(electric)]. The mean life of an actinide atom in the LDAB is only 4.5 yr, and actinides, once charged to the LDAB, might be reprocessed fewer times during irradiation than in previously proposed systems.