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Division Spotlight
Decommissioning & Environmental Sciences
The mission of the Decommissioning and Environmental Sciences (DES) Division is to promote the development and use of those skills and technologies associated with the use of nuclear energy and the optimal management and stewardship of the environment, sustainable development, decommissioning, remediation, reutilization, and long-term surveillance and maintenance of nuclear-related installations, and sites. The target audience for this effort is the membership of the Division, the Society, and the public at large.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Winter Conference and Expo
November 17–21, 2024
Orlando, FL|Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld
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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Latest News
The DOE picks six HALEU deconverters. What have we learned?
The Department of Energy announced contracts yesterday for six companies to perform high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) deconversion and to transform enriched uranium hexafluoride (UF6) to other chemical forms, including metal or oxide, for storage before it is fabricated into fuel for advanced reactors. It amounts to a first round of contracting. “These contracts will allow selected companies to bid on work for deconversion services,” according to the DOE’s announcement, “creating strong competition and allowing DOE to select the best fit for future work.”
Kun-Su Lim, Chang-Lak Kim, Sanghwa Shin
Nuclear Technology | Volume 208 | Number 9 | September 2022 | Pages 1406-1415
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2022.2031496
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Determining whether to release a site after decommissioning a nuclear facility should be preceded by an environmental impact assessment of the exposure radiation dose according to the radionuclides in the soil. Currently, in Korea, various evaluation methodologies and decommissioning technologies are being studied for the first decommissioning of nuclear power plants, starting with Kori Nuclear Power Plant Unit (Kori-1), which is based on the “Multi-Agency Radiation Survey and Site Investigation Manual MARSSIM” developed in the United States. The scope and evaluation targets of deep soil may differ depending on the purpose, but it has been confirmed that the International Atomic Energy Agency and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission are targeting subsurface soil. MARSSIM outlines the need for an evaluation of this subsurface soil but does not suggest specific methods. In NUREG-1757, which complements MARSSIM, it is confirmed that subsurface soil specifically means a soil layer that is 15 to 30 cm deep in the surface layer. In the current study, using the previously verified computational code RESidual RADioactivity (RESRAD)-ONSITE, a methodology for summation is proposed to evaluate the impact of subsurface soil more flexibly and realistically while minimizing the exposure dose evaluation procedure. When using RESRAD-ONSITE according to this evaluation methodology, it was confirmed that it is possible to respond to changes in the depths of various soil layers. In addition, it was also confirmed that this methodology is adaptable to the contamination of nuclides, such as 60Co, 137Cs, 152Eu, and 154Eu, which are expected to be major nuclides when decommissioning nuclear facilities.
