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
September 2026
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
August 2026
Latest News
Undeclared uranium hitches a ride on cobalt exports from Congo, study says
Philippe (left) and Manzuk quantified the amount of uranium that has been exported from the DRC in cobalt shipments or left behind in the environment. (Photo: Joel Hallberg/UW–Madison)
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Princeton University have published a study in Nature Communications that calls attention to a blind spot in nuclear nonproliferation: The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has exported thousands of metric tons of uranium, and there is no accounting for where it has gone.
In partnership with Lighthouse Reports and the Financial Times, UW–Madison nuclear engineering professor and nuclear security expert Sébastien Philippe and Ryan Manzuk, a geologist and research fellow in Philippe’s group and at Princeton, conducted the study using countrywide mineralization and geochemical data.
Yoshitaka Chikazawa, Christopher Grandy
Nuclear Technology | Volume 165 | Number 3 | March 2009 | Pages 321-332
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-A4105
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Advanced Burner Reactor (ABR) is one of the components of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) used to close the fuel cycle. ABR is a sodium-cooled fast reactor that is used to consume transuranic elements resulting from the reprocessing of light water reactor spent nuclear fuel. ABR-1000 [1000 MW(thermal)] is a fast reactor concept created at Argonne National Laboratory to be used as a reference concept for various future trade-offs. ABR-1000 meets the GNEP goals although it uses what is considered base sodium fast reactor technology for its systems and components. One of the considerations of any fast reactor plant concept is the ability to perform fuel-handling operations with new and spent fast reactor fuel. The transmutation fuel proposed as the ABR fuel has a very little experience base, and thus, this paper investigates a fuel-handling concept and potential issues of handling fast reactor fuel containing minor actinides. In this study, two thermal analyses supporting a conceptual design study on the ABR-1000 fuel-handling system were carried out. One analysis investigated passive dry spent fuel storage, and the other analysis investigated a fresh fuel shipping cask. Passive dry storage can be made suitable for the ABR-1000 spent fuel storage with sodium-bonded metal fuel. The thermal analysis shows that spent fast reactor fuel with a decay heat of 2 kW or less can be stored passively in a helium atmosphere. The 2-kW value seems to be a reasonable and practical level, and a combination of reasonably-sized in-sodium storage followed by passive dry storage could be a candidate for spent fuel storage for the next-generation sodium-cooled reactor with sodium-bonded metal fuel. Requirements for the shipping casks for minor actinide-bearing fuel with a high decay heat level are also discussed in this paper. The shipping cask for fresh sodium-cooled-reactor fuel should be a dry type to reduce the reaction between residual moisture on fresh fuel and the sodium coolant. The cladding temperature requirement is maintained below the creep temperature limit to avoid any damage before core installation. The thermal analysis shows that a helium gas-filled cask can accommodate ABR-1000 fresh minor actinide-bearing fuel with 700-W decay heat. The above analysis results revealed the overall requirement for minor actinide-bearing metal fuel handling. The information is thought to be helpful in the design of the ABR-1000 and future sodium-cooled-reactor fuel-handling system.