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Division Spotlight
Fuel Cycle & Waste Management
Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
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.
Peter Burgsmüller, Andreas Jacobi, Jr., Jean-François Jaeger, Max J. Kläntschi, Walter Seifritz, François Vuilleumier, Ferdinand Wegmann
Nuclear Technology | Volume 79 | Number 2 | November 1987 | Pages 167-174
Technical Paper | Nuclear Power Plants for Generation of Heat / Fission Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT87-A34034
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
With fossil fuel running out in the foreseeable future, it is essential to develop substitution strategies. The heat market in industrial countries in the Northern Hemisphere has two peaks. The dominant one occurs at ∼90° C and is due to the energy demand for space heating and warm water production. A smaller peak, mainly for metallurgical processes, occurs at ∼1300°C. From thermodynamics considerations, using the high flame temperature of fossil fuels—or electricity—to supply the lower temperature range is obviously wasteful. On the other hand, contemporary light water reactor (LWR) technology makes it feasible to provide the space heating sector with hot water in a district heating network. Basically, existing reactor systems are adequate for this. Some 40 to 50% of the heat demand arises in the range below 120°C, causing a corresponding fraction of air pollution by SO2 and to a lesser extent NOx, if fossil fuels are used. When analyzing an adequate district heating system, units in the 10- to 50-MW power range are found to be most suitable for Switzerland, both with respect to network size and the democratic decision-making structure. They would have the best chance of penetrating and covering the heat market. In a cooperative effort among some members of Swiss industry and the Swiss Federal Institute for Reactor Research, a small LWR for heating purposes only is being developed. The Swiss Heating Reactor (SHR) is a small, 15-bar boiling water reactor. Its core, together with its primary heat exchanger, is located in a reactor pressure vessel and a shroud within an underground water pool. This pool acts both as an emergency heat sink and as a biological shield and has a steel-lined concrete containment. The pool is dimensioned to leave the concrete ultimately inactive. The built-in safety and reliability of the SHR are better than for conventional nuclear power reactors, and the admissible risk curve to an individual is set correspondingly low. The economic target of 100 to 120 Swiss franc/MW · h heat for consumers seems achievable.
