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.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
Latest Magazine Issues
Aug 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
October 2026
Nuclear Technology
September 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
August 2026
Latest News
LLNL, Ampera partner to develop thorium-based TRISO fuel
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has formed a strategic partnership with Ampera to develop the company’s nuclear fuel concept through a project named THUNDER, for Thorium Unimodal Droplet Ejection for Reactors.
The focus of THUNDER is fabricating TRISO made with kernels of thorium rather than the usual uranium. LLNL and Ampera will evaluate and optimize liquid metal–jetting technology to produce highly uniform, spherical kernels of thorium-232 for later processing into TRISO fuel.
J. W. Maddox, W. M. Stacey
Nuclear Technology | Volume 158 | Number 1 | April 2007 | Pages 94-108
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management and Disposal | doi.org/10.13182/NT07-A3828
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Geologic repositories for the long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) are limited in their capacity by the amount of decay heat emitted by the SNF. The largest long-term contribution to this decay heat comes from the transuranics (TRUs), the destruction of which could increase storage capacity by a factor of at least 10. A design concept for a subcritical gas-cooled fast transmutation reactor (GCFTR) fueled with TRUs from SNF is being developed. This paper presents the results of analyses of several GCFTR fuel cycle scenarios that have a deep-burn (>90% burnup of the TRU fuel) primary objective and a secondary objective of avoiding reprocessing of the TRU fuel if possible.