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Conference Spotlight
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.
Luis E. Herranz, F. J. S. Velasco, Claudia L. Del Prá
Nuclear Technology | Volume 154 | Number 1 | April 2006 | Pages 85-94
Technical Paper | Nuclear Plant Operations and Control | doi.org/10.13182/NT06-A3719
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Steam generator tube rupture sequences are identified as major contributors to the risk assessments of pressurized water reactors. Despite very low probability, they involve a direct pathway for radioactivity release into the environment. Nonetheless, fission products could be partially retained in the secondary side of the steam generator, even in the absence of water. This paper summarizes the main results of a bench-scale experimental program focused on the aerosol retention near the tube breach at the secondary side of a dry steam generator. The major variables investigated were the breach configuration (i.e., type, orientation, and location) and the gas mass flow rate. The results showed that near the breach, aerosol retention is low (<20%), and it generally decreases when the gas mass flow rate increases. Discussion of the experimental results suggested that certain phenomena, such as fragmentation and/or resuspension, as well as particle nature could have a large effect on the scenario studied, and they should be considered as potential issues and/or variables to be explored in future work.