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Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy
The mission of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy Division (NNPD) is to promote the peaceful use of nuclear technology while simultaneously preventing the diversion and misuse of nuclear material and technology through appropriate safeguards and security, and promotion of nuclear nonproliferation policies. To achieve this mission, the objectives of the NNPD are to: Promote policy that discourages the proliferation of nuclear technology and material to inappropriate entities. Provide information to ANS members, the technical community at large, opinion leaders, and decision makers to improve their understanding of nuclear nonproliferation issues. Become a recognized technical resource on nuclear nonproliferation, safeguards, and security issues. Serve as the integration and coordination body for nuclear nonproliferation activities for the ANS. Work cooperatively with other ANS divisions to achieve these objective nonproliferation policies.
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2024 ANS Annual Conference
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Former Exelon CEO Chris Crane remembered for “transformational milestones”
Crane
Exelon announced that Chris Crane, the company’s former chief executive, passed away on Saturday in Chicago at the age of 65.
Crane served as the company’s president and CEO from 2012 until his retirement in December 2022. During his tenure, he steered the energy company through several transformational milestones, including the successful mergers with Constellation Energy in 2012 and Pepco Holdings in 2016, creating the largest utility business by customer count in the United States.
In 2022, with the spin-off of Constellation as the generation and retail side of energy business (with the largest U.S. nuclear fleet), Crane led the creation of a stand-alone transmission and delivery energy company.
Seung Min Woo, Heukjin Boo, Sunil S. Chirayath, Keunhong Jeong
Nuclear Technology | Volume 205 | Number 3 | March 2019 | Pages 464-473
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2018.1500074
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Under normal operating conditions, a pyroprocessing facility removes highly radioactive and nonradioactive fission product waste from used nuclear reactor fuel to recycle the remaining uranium (U), plutonium (Pu), and other actinides contained in it. The products from this facility are separate ingots of U and mixed transuranic elements (TRUs)–uranium (TRU-U). Uranium in both ingots will be depleted U with 235U enrichment less than 1%. The TRU-U ingot will contain neptunium, Pu, americium (Am), and curium (Cm) mixed with U with an approximate TRU:U ratio of 1:1. Four scenarios of nuclear material diversion by potential misuse of the pyroprocessing facility operations are analyzed and compared with the scenario of normal operating condition when the electrowinning process or the TRU-U ingot manufacturing process is misused. These diversion scenario analyses are carried out to understand the proliferation potential and to recommend safeguards measures. The four scenarios of nuclear material diversion analyzed are (1) 50 g Pu, (2) 100 g Pu, (3) 200 g Pu, and (4) all Pu, i.e., 452 g in the 1-kg TRU-U ingot. Plutonium cannot be diverted by itself because other TRUs (Am and Cm) will be simultaneously extracted with Pu. This is because the reduction potentials of those actinides are not distinguishably different from that of Pu on a liquid cadmium cathode of the electrowinning step of the pyroprocess. Hence, in addition to Pu, simultaneous diversion of respective amounts of Am and Cm for the four diversion scenarios are considered. The diversion scenario analysis also considered the concealment of Pu and Cm removal from the TRU-U ingot by adding an equivalent amount of 252Cf to replenish the neutron source emissions. These five scenarios (four nuclear material diversion scenarios and one normal operation scenario) are modeled and simulated using the Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP6) radiation transport computer code by incorporating the model of a NaI gamma radiation detection system. The results show that the presence and absence of Pu in the TRU-U ingot can be confirmed by the NaI gamma radiation detection system. However, identifying the presence of U in the TRU-U ingot is difficult using the NaI gamma radiation detection system due to interference from TRU gamma radiation. To identify the U presence in the TRU-U ingot, an application of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is studied. The NMR technology employs a numerical calculation approach based on density functional theory (DFT) simulation. The DFT calculation results show that the detection of U in a pyroprocess is feasible by NMR technology. In addition, these four nuclear material diversion scenarios are analyzed through MCNP6 simulations by incorporating the model of a coincidence neutron detection system. To conceal the nuclear material diversion, the simulations are performed by replacing the diverted Pu and Cm by an appropriate mass of 252Cf neutron source that is equivalent to the neutron source strengths of the diverted mass. Simulation results show that this concealment (misuse) results in a deceived Pu mass estimate in the TRU-U ingot if the Pu-to-244Cm–ratio method (proposed method in the literature) is used.