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Division Spotlight
Radiation Protection & Shielding
The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
Meeting Spotlight
Conference on Nuclear Training and Education: A Biennial International Forum (CONTE 2023)
February 6–9, 2023
Amelia Island, FL|Omni Amelia Island Resort
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!
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Nuclear Science and Engineering
February 2023
Nuclear Technology
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January 2023
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Nuclear energy: enabling production of food, fiber, hydrocarbon biofuels, and negative carbon emissions
In the 1960s, Alvin Weinberg at Oak Ridge National Laboratory initiated a series of studies on nuclear agro-industrial complexes1 to address the needs of the world’s growing population. Agriculture was a central component of these studies, as it must be. Much of the emphasis was on desalination of seawater to provide fresh water for irrigation of crops. Remarkable advances have lowered the cost of desalination to make that option viable in countries like Israel. Later studies2 asked the question, are there sufficient minerals (potassium, phosphorous, copper, nickel, etc.) to enable a prosperous global society assuming sufficient nuclear energy? The answer was a qualified “yes,” with the caveat that mineral resources will limit some technological options. These studies were defined by the characteristic of looking across agricultural and industrial sectors to address multiple challenges using nuclear energy.
S. Tina Ghosh, Hossein Esmaili, Alfred Hathaway, Nathan Bixler, Dusty Brooks, Matthew Dennis, Douglas Osborn, Kyle Ross, Kenneth Wagner
Nuclear Technology | Volume 207 | Number 3 | March 2021 | Pages 441-451
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2021.1875737
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper provides an overview of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC’s) project to develop a technical report summarizing the most important insights from its three State-of-the-Art Reactor Consequence Analyses (SOARCA) project uncertainty analyses (UAs). The NRC, with Sandia National Laboratories, has completed three UAs as part of the SOARCA project, for three different operating reactor types in three different locations in the United States. The SOARCA UAs included an integrated evaluation of uncertainty in accident progression, radiological release, and off-site health consequence projections. These three UAs are currently documented in three detailed reports. The NRC is currently developing a technical overview report summarizing the important insights from the three SOARCA UAs. The purpose of the NRC summary is to provide a useful reference for regulatory applications that require the evaluation of off-site consequence risk from beyond-design-basis-event severe accidents. Examples include regulatory and cost-benefit analyses that rely on off-site consequence projections using the MELCOR Accident Consequence Code System (MACCS) code, in conjunction with MELCOR for source term characterization. This paper provides an overview and discusses the overall scope and methodology of the SOARCA UAs and the approach for the summary report currently under development.