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Division Spotlight
Reactor Physics
The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
Meeting Spotlight
2025 ANS Annual Conference
June 15–18, 2025
Chicago, IL|Chicago Marriott Downtown
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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Smarter waste strategies: Helping deliver on the promise of advanced nuclear
At COP28, held in Dubai in 2023, a clear consensus emerged: Nuclear energy must be a cornerstone of the global clean energy transition. With electricity demand projected to soar as we decarbonize not just power but also industry, transport, and heat, the case for new nuclear is compelling. More than 20 countries committed to tripling global nuclear capacity by 2050. In the United States alone, the Department of Energy forecasts that the country’s current nuclear capacity could more than triple, adding 200 GW of new nuclear to the existing 95 GW by mid-century.
Muhammad R. Abdussami, Aditi Verma
Nuclear Technology | Volume 211 | Number 6 | June 2025 | Pages 1256-1281
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2024.2386491
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Nuclear energy and renewables, both being low-carbon energy sources that are likely to play an increasingly larger role in energy systems of the future, are increasingly being considered from an integrated standpoint. However, the deployment of baseload nuclear reactors as part of such integrated systems may present some challenges in long-term planning, such as surplus energy generation, inflexibility, and increased energy storage requirements. On the other hand, flexible advanced nuclear reactors can be utilized to tackle the limitations of baseload reactors, such as inflexibility of load-following and high initial capital cost.
This paper aims to investigate from techno-economic aspects whether energy modelers should use a flexible nuclear reactor model, specifically a small modular pressurized water reactor technology, or a baseload reactor model of comparable size in long-term integrated nuclear renewable (NR) integrated energy system planning simulations. We mathematically develop an off-grid NR integrated system in a MATLAB environment. An advanced small modular reactor is incorporated in this study and is operated in a baseload and flexible mode of operation for comparative analysis. Two metaheuristic optimization algorithms, pelican optimization algorithm and particle swarm optimization, are employed to obtain and validate the optimal configurations of two different NR systems (e.g. baseload reactor system and flexible reactor system). A sensitivity analysis is conducted to reinforce the key research findings.
The results indicate that a flexible nuclear reactor reduces the total annualized cost by a very small amount (roughly 2%) and the energy storage sizing by around 3% for NR integrated system planning, compared to a baseload reactor. This study provides insights into the operational assumptions (e.g. baseload or flexible operation) to consider during the modeling of a long-term planning problem of for NR integrated systems.