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2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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The journey of the U.S. fuel cycle
Craig Piercycpiercy@ans.org
While most big journeys begin with a clear objective, they rarely start with an exact knowledge of the route. When commissioning the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1803, President Thomas Jefferson didn’t provide specific “turn right at the big mountain” directions to the Corps of Discovery. He gave goal-oriented instructions: explore the Missouri River, find its source, search for a transcontinental water route to the Pacific, and build scientific and cultural knowledge along the way.
Jefferson left it up to Lewis and Clark to turn his broad, geopolitically motivated guidance into gritty reality.
Similarly, U.S. nuclear policy has begun a journey toward closing the U.S. nuclear fuel cycle. There is a clear signal of support for recycling from the Trump administration, along with growing bipartisan excitement in Congress. Yet the precise path remains unclear.
Hangbok Choi, Chang Joon Jeong, Gyu Hong Roh, Bo Wook Rhee, Myung Seung Yang
Nuclear Technology | Volume 153 | Number 1 | January 2006 | Pages 25-40
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT06-A3687
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Since 1992, the direct use of spent pressurized water reactor fuel in Canada deuterium uranium (CANDU) reactors (DUPIC) has been studied as an alternative to the once-through fuel cycle. The DUPIC fuel cycle study is focused on the analysis of technical feasibility, the fabrication of DUPIC fuels for irradiation tests, and the demonstration of the DUPIC fuel performance. The feasibility analysis was conducted for the compatibility of the DUPIC fuel with existing CANDU-6 reactors from the viewpoints of reactor physics, reactor safety, fuel cycle economics, etc. This study has summarized the intermediate results of the DUPIC fuel compatibility analysis, which includes the CANDU reactor physics design requirements, DUPIC fuel core physics design method, performance of the DUPIC fuel core, and the regional overpower trip setpoint. The physics analysis showed the CANDU-6 reactor can accommodate the DUPIC fuel without deteriorating the physics design requirements by adjusting the fuel management scheme if the fissile content of the DUPIC fuel is tightly controlled.
