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
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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
Oct 2025
Jul 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
November 2025
Nuclear Technology
October 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
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.
Juris Tiliks, Gunta Kizane, Aigars Vitins, Elina Kolodinska, Elisa Rabaglino
Nuclear Technology | Volume 159 | Number 3 | September 2007 | Pages 245-249
Technical Paper | Beryllium Technology | doi.org/10.13182/NT07-A3872
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The effects of temperature, magnetic field (MF), and ionizing radiation on the release of tritium from the Be pebbles irradiated in the BERYLLIUM experiment in 1994 in Petten, The Netherlands (irradiation neutron fluence 1.24 × 1025 m-2, irradiation temperature 780 K, and 3H content 7 appm) were investigated in this study. Simultaneous action of these factors corresponds to the real operating conditions of the blanket of a fusion reactor. The total amount of tritium in a separate pebble, the chemical forms of localized tritium (T0, T2, and T+), and the tritium distribution in the pebble volume were determined by a lyomethod (dissolution). Thermoannealing experiments were performed at a constant temperature of 1123 K for 2 h under the following conditions: separately both in MF (1.7 T) and under fast electron radiation (E = 5 MeV; P = 14 MGyh-1) as well as under the action of all three factors. Tritium in the Be pebbles is localized for the most part as T2 (85 to 94%). The abundances of T+ (4 to 5%) and T0 (5 to 10%) are little. The tritium distribution in a pebble is not uniform; most of the tritium is localized in the inner part of a pebble. An MF of 1.7 T decreases slightly the fractional release of tritium under the given conditions of thermoannealing (from 30 to 25%), the fast electron radiation increases it (from 30 to 40%), but the simultaneous action of the MF and radiation increases it (from 30 to 54%). The effects observed are explained that the MF and radiation affect the concentration of main diffusing particles T0 in a beryllium matrix.
