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.
Division Spotlight
Radiation Protection & Shielding
The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Jun 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
July 2025
Nuclear Technology
June 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Findings of the ANS Executive Order Expert Advisory Group
On May 23, President Donald Trump signed four Executive Orders (EOs) designed to “usher in a nuclear energy renaissance” by building on federal policies and programs and directing efficiencies in the licensing, siting, development, and deployment of advanced reactor technologies.
In order to evaluate the specific proposals contained in the EOs, a group of experts was convened from various sectors of the U.S. nuclear technology enterprise, under the auspices of the ANS External Affairs Committee, to compare the EOs against existing ANS board-approved Position Statements and to offer constructive input for subsequent implementation by the Trump administration.
The group’s findings and feedback, which were delivered by ANS CEO Craig Piercy to ANS President Lisa Marshall and the Board of Directors, are listed below, grouped by individual EO.
Hirokazu Ohta, Tadashi Inoue, Yoshiharu Sakamura, Kensuke Kinoshita
Nuclear Technology | Volume 150 | Number 2 | May 2005 | Pages 153-161
Technical Paper | Reprocessing | doi.org/10.13182/NT05-A3613
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A concept of pyroprocessing light water reactor (LWR) spent fuels based on an electrochemical reduction technology is proposed, and the material balance of the processing of mixed oxide (MOX) or high-burnup uranium oxide (UO2) spent fuel is evaluated. Furthermore, a burnup analysis for metal fuel fast breeder reactors (FBRs) is conducted on low-decontamination materials recovered by pyroprocessing. In the case of processing MOX spent fuel (40 GWd/t), UO2 is separately collected for ~60 wt% of the spent fuel in advance of the electrochemical reduction step, and the product recovered through the rare earth (RE) removal step, which has the composition uranium:plutonium:minor actinides:fission products (FPs) = 76.4:18.4:1.7:3.5, can be applied as an ingredient of FBR metal fuel without a further decontamination process. On the other hand, the electroreduced alloy of high-burnup UO2 spent fuel (48 GWd/t) requires further decontamination of residual FPs by an additional process such as electrorefining even if RE FPs are removed from the alloy because the recovered plutonium (Pu) is accompanied by almost the same amount of FPs in addition to RE. However, the amount of treated materials in the electrorefining step is reduced to ~10 wt% of the total spent fuel owing to the prior UO2 recovery step. These results reveal that the application of electrochemical reduction technology to LWR spent oxide fuel is a promising concept for providing FBR metal fuel by a rationalized process.