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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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House E&C members question the DOE
As work progresses on the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Reactor Pilot Program, which will progress through DOE authorization rather than Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing, three members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce have sent a critical letter to Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
The letter demands “information about the DOE and its employees’ dealings with the NRC and its staff” and expresses concern that DOE staff has “broken the firewall” between the departments.
Milan Vujović, Miloš Vujisić
Nuclear Technology | Volume 208 | Number 11 | November 2022 | Pages 1649-1665
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2022.2070354
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Several select geopolymer, polymer, and composite materials are considered as potential candidates for the inner shielding in containers used for storage and disposal of low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste, from the perspective of radiation effects. The suitability of the probed materials is examined through Monte Carlo simulations, which yield absorbed dose values in container inner shieldings of various compositions and dimensions. The radioactive waste considered in the simulation models contains 60Co or 137Cs and is placed inside standard 216.5-L (55-gal) drums, in either compacted or solidified form. The influence of container stacking, in either a storage or a disposal environment, on the dose in the shielding is also taken into account. The simulation results are used for calculating the dose-dependent overpressure within the container caused by the gas generated in the inner shielding through radiolysis. Two types of waste activity limits are determined for each of the researched shielding materials: one below which the overpressure decreases after the initial heat-induced jump and another that results in an overpressure that stays just below the maximum tolerable value. Dose-dependent changes of the polymer and composite shielding materials’ molecular weights are also calculated. The obtained results show that with regard to the radiation effects caused by the investigated sources, the examined materials are compatible with the proposed use as inner shielding in radioactive waste containers.