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
Nuclear Criticality Safety
NCSD provides communication among nuclear criticality safety professionals through the development of standards, the evolution of training methods and materials, the presentation of technical data and procedures, and the creation of specialty publications. In these ways, the division furthers the exchange of technical information on nuclear criticality safety with the ultimate goal of promoting the safe handling of fissionable materials outside reactors.
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
ANS announces 2025 Presidential Citations
One of the privileges of being president of the American Nuclear Society is awarding Presidential Citations to individuals who have demonstrated outstanding effort in some manner for the benefit of ANS or the nuclear community at large. Citations are conferred twice each year, at the Annual and Winter Meetings.
ANS President Lisa Marshall has named this season’s recipients, who will receive recognition at the upcoming Annual Conference in Chicago during the Special Session on Tuesday, June 17.
C. W. Forsberg, D. Curtis, D. Stack
Nuclear Technology | Volume 198 | Number 1 | April 2017 | Pages 70-78
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2017.1294426
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A crushed rock heat storage facility with storage capacities of gigawatt-hours is proposed to couple to light water reactors (LWRs) to enable base-load LWR operation with (1) variable electricity to the grid and heat to industry and (2) substantially higher revenue in deregulated electricity markets with significant solar or wind generation capacity. At times of low electricity prices, crushed rock is heated by hot air in a two-stage process. Air is initially heated by a steam-air heat exchanger using LWR steam and then with electric resistance heaters before circulating from the top to bottom of the crushed rock pile. Depending upon the design, peak rock temperatures can be from 250°C to 800°C. Heat is recovered by circulating air from the bottom to the top of the crushed rock pile with the hot air sent to industrial furnaces or thermal electric power plants. For industrial applications the hot air is a partial replacement for the burning of fossil fuels in industrial furnaces. Many of the challenges and questions associated with such a system are being addressed by (1) the development of the Red Leaf shale oil process, where crushed oil shale in 30-m-high piles is heated with hot gases to thermally decompose solid kerogen to produce a light crude oil, and (2) firebrick resistance-heated energy storage (FIRES), where low-price electricity is used to heat firebrick to provide stored heat for space heating and in the future may provide heat for electricity production or industrial heat.