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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.
Lane S. Paschal, C. L. Bentley,† Michael E. Dunn,‡ S. Goluoglu, R. E. Pevey, H. L. Dodds
Nuclear Technology | Volume 119 | Number 3 | September 1997 | Pages 295-305
Technical Paper | Nuclear Criticality Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT97-A35405
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A criticality safety study of diffusion cascade coolers in a shutdown state is presented. The coolers represent six typical cascade coolers at a gaseous diffusion plant with accumulated deposits of UO2F2. The study involves keff calculations for the coolers with various distributions of UO2F2, which are assumed as part of several hypothetical accident scenarios. The results show that at least two independent failures must occur in order to have a criticality. Additionally, the distributions chosen represent the upper bounds for keff. Individual results show that the keff values for the cascade coolers designed for 80 and 97% enriched UF6 with deposit amounts <2.409 and 2.185 kg, respectively, will not exceed 0.9 for the accident scenarios modeled. All other coolers require shell-side flooding with H2O in order to cause a criticality, which is possible only if two or more independent failures occur.
