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 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Latest Magazine Issues
Mar 2026
Jan 2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
March 2026
Nuclear Technology
February 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
April 2026
Latest News
NN Asks: What hurdles stand in the way of nuclear power’s global expansion?
Jake Jurewicz
Nuclear technology is mature. It provides firm power at scale with minimal externalities and has done so for decades. The core problem isn’t about the technology—it is how the plants are built. Nuclear construction has a well-documented history of cost and schedule overruns. Previous nuclear plants often spent more than twice what was first budgeted, making nuclear among the power technologies with the largest average cost overruns worldwide.
Recent projects illustrate how severe the problem can be. In South Carolina, the V.C. Summer nuclear expansion saw projected costs rise from roughly $10 billion to more than $25 billion before the project was abandoned in 2017, by which time more than $9 billion had already been spent and customers were stuck paying for a site they have yet to benefit from.
Manuela Profir, Vincent Moreau
Nuclear Technology | Volume 210 | Number 4 | April 2024 | Pages 565-578
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2023.2175589
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The pool-type experimental facility CIRColazione Eutettico (CIRCE) has been built by ENEA in support to the development of liquid-metal fast reactors. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of the new test section, called the Thermal-hydraulic HElical Tubes Innovative System or THETIS, is being built, and is described along with the pretest numerical results. The pretest study analysis supports the dimensioning of the experimental setup and provides a sound but still not complete basis for the experimental transients. Appropriate thermal boundary conditions for the steady state are implemented. These conditions are found to be not suitable for thermal transients, hence the necessary compliance is analyzed and defined, requiring additional preliminary experimental tests. The main novelty in the refurbishment of the CIRCE is the installation of an innovative helical coil steam generator (HCSG). The realization of its numerical counterpart is challenging; therefore, a specific CFD model of the HCSG has been developed separately from the global model. Its preliminary results are described and discussed.